Women?s land ownership critical for economic independence

In Southern Africa women’s ability to access, own and control means of production such as land and livestock are severely limited by cultural practices and customary laws. This in turn has devastating impacts on their economic independence and ability to move out of poverty.

 

Yet women’s access to land for food production is critical to the welfare of the entire region as it is women who are primarily responsible for maintaining households. Women provide 70-80 percent of all agricultural labour and 90 percent of all labour involving food production in the region. But they own only a fraction of the land, and constitute the majority of the population living in poverty.

 

Unequal access to land and other productive resources such as livestock, markets, credit, and modern technology are among the most significant forms of economic inequality between men and women and have consequences for women as social and political actors.

 

Under customary law – subscribed to by most countries in Southern Africa which operate dual legal systems – a woman loses her rights to own property upon marriage as ownership passes to her husband and then her male children.

 

Because women’s ties to land are mediated by their relationship to men in patrilineal societies, their attempts to assert their rights in ways that challenge customary land tenure systems are most often perceived as an attempt to disrupt society.

 

In the patriarchal societies which dominate Southern Africa women generally do not inherit land from either their fathers or their husbands. Fathers will not leave land to their daughters for fear they may marry outside the clan, and take the land with them. Husbands often do not leave land to their wives for the same reason: land must remain within the clan at all costs; even disinheriting one’s daughter or wife. Even if a woman jointly acquires land with her husband and invests her life in cultivating it, she cannot claim ownership of the property.

 

Since women are almost completely dependent on men to access land, women who are childless, single, widowed, disabled, separated/divorced, or with only female children are particularly vulnerable.

 

Across the region, governments have instituted legal reforms to address the issue of women’s land ownership. The results have been varied and point to the need for a more pro-active approach which includes addressing the negative effects of customary law. To do this though, governments would have to abandon their dual legal systems and develop and uphold progressive constitutional law that would provide for equality between men and women.

 

In Botswana where the government has amended the land laws, women have not enjoyed equal access to business lease plots and commercial/industrial licenses. Until recently, only 35.6 percent of commercial and industrial plot holders were women.

 

Despite a quota of 20 percent land allocation to women in Zimbabwe being a key principle in the land reform agenda which began in 1998, by the end of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in 2002, the land quota for women had not been legislated and the number of women allocated land was dismally low countrywide.

 

According to the 2003 Charles Utete Land Report, female-headed households who benefited under Model A1 (peasant farmers) constituted only 18 percent of the total number of households while female beneficiaries under the Model A2 (commercial farmers) constituted only 12 percent. A Presidential Land Review Committee, appointed in 2003 has made specific recommendations on the gender dimensions of the agrarian change and reform.

 

In South Africa, the Department of Land Affairs has put in place a gender policy, which seeks to ensure that gender equality is addressed within all aspects of land reform. However, the 2004 SADC report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action noted that some policies may disadvantage women as the intention is to restore land to those who had land rights previously, most of whom are not women.

 

The Tanzanian government revised the Land Law in 2004 to “create value for land and to allow mortgage of land with consent of spouses and establish land Tribunals whose composition must include not less than 43 percent of women.” This is an obvious attempt to address gender discrimination in land rights but the implementation of policies and laws have yielded mixed results and women’s land rights remains tenuous.

 

In Namibia, the Communal Land Act (2002) provides for a surviving spouse to remain on the property (thus referring to immovable property) but does not refer to movable property. Although the Act has provisions to assist women who lose their land when widowed, the seizure of movable property by families has become more common than land grabbing, possibly because the former is more easily disposed of than land.

 

There is need therefore, for legal reforms regarding land to be supported by programmes and initiatives to strengthen women’s education and economic independence as well as to address cultural practices that obstruct women’s access to land. 

 

Women’s limited land ownership retards development and contributes to poverty. Encouraging women to purchase land and obtain titles to land, as well as taking claims to courts, are some of the initiatives being advocated for, and adopted to encourage economic independence and enhance women’s access to land.