This paper analyses through empirical data women’s reality in Northern Mozambique related to land tenure. Two different kinship systems coexist in Mozambique, one patrilineal in force in Southern Mozambique and one matrilineal in parts of the centre and North of the country. The paper argues that in the current context, the right of women to access and administer land is being limited not so much by traditional and customary social rules and law, but rather by the adverse socioeconomic context which characterizes the whole peasant sector.

The Mozambiqan government has marked the northern Niassa province to promote commercial, large-scale tree plantations. Currently, the single biggest plantation in the region comprises of 13,000 hectares of eucalyptus and pine, owned by a company called ‘Chikweti Forests of Niassa.’ A government-led investigation in 2010 reported that the company had acquired over 32,000 hectares illegally. The big losers were small farmers, vulnerable due to lack of awareness and complicity of corrupt government officials.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has argued that implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU) should be delayed until 2016. Speaking to reporters in Brussels, where he was attending the Seventh European Development Days (EDD), Guebuza said 'our preference is for 2016. Everything is under negotiation and we are waiting for the results'. The EU is currently insisting that countries that do not ratify EPAs by January 2014 will lose out on the benefits of preferential access to European markets.