As a part of the coalition supporting the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, Pambazuka News is profiling various aspects of the Protocol over a six-week period. This week we will look at African women’s rights to land and property. Under Article 19, the Right to Sustainable Development, the protocol states that:

“Women shall have the right to fully enjoy their right to sustainable development. In this connection, the States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to:
c) promote women’s access to and control over productive resources such as land and guarantee their right to property.”

Women in many African countries live within the confines of patriarchy. One of the ways in which this inequality has manifested is in regards to property and land rights. Women exist within overlapping tradition and official law – neither of which are always fair. The importance of these rights cannot be underestimated. Not only do women rely on land for food security and income, but women’s rights and social positions are held up in their access to land and property rights.

For a large proportion of African women, the options related to land are limited. Few have access to the money required to purchase land in the first place. Further, even though the day-to-day maintenance of land is often managed largely by women, their control over land is extremely limited. And should a wife lose her husband, inheritance laws do not generally favour women, leaving many vulnerable to homelessness and poverty should they not enjoy good marital and familial relationships.

These inequalities fit with the larger social settings that most African women find themselves in. While they are respected in some ways, the status of most African women is low. Discriminatory laws, policies, customs, traditions and attitudes both cause and exacerbate this overall environment for women. The effects of colonial laws also influence how women’s access to land and property are dealt with. The individualization of land tenure and market pressures have also interfered with women’s rights. The intersection of traditional and official law has done little for the rights of women in Africa. In communal land systems, women sometimes had rights to resources as they were, and continue to be, household managers. When land tenure was individualized, as has been the case in most of Africa, women lost this access, and were registered under their husband’s names. As a result of these dynamics, it is extremely difficult for women to enjoy the same rights and benefits of these rights, as men.

Women also suffer from an added lack of education about their rights, so in cases where women are actually accorded the rights of land and property ownership, it can be easy for men and other family members to deny these rights. Illiteracy and lack of access to formal courts intensify these conditions. Further, women’s representation in decision-making bodies is limited, and as a result, their voices are further silenced.

As a result of these official and unofficial policies that deny women access, ownership and control over land, families and communities suffer. That women must negotiate their rights through relationships to men, as either wives or kin, is not only unfair, but is extremely unbalanced. But women are stepping forward and asserting their rights and they are using both legal and customary means to do so. The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa will be another means to strengthen not only their rights, but their means for attaining them.

Further Reading:

UN Habitat Document on Women and Land Tenure
http://www.unhabitat.org/programmes/landtenure/documents/CSDWomen.pdf

Previous Articles:

Women and Sustainable Development - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30299

Women in Armed Conflict - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30122

Female Genital Mutilation - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30050

Trafficking in Women and Children - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29740

Female Refugees - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29873

* Researched and written by Karoline Kemp, a Commonwealth of Learning Young Professional Intern with Fahamu.