Some traditional leaders continue with the old ways of regarding women as minors who need to be represented by men, Inyanda National Land Movement says.

Sick and tired of always being allocated the back seat and being represented by men when it comes to land, a group of women are saying “enough is enough” and are taking the fight to traditional leaders, whom they see as stumbling blocks to women’s right of access to land.

At this week’s 20^th Annual World Bank Land and Poverty Conference in Washington DC, a new campaign called Stand For Her Land has been launched.

A new report on the status of gender equality in Rwanda that was launched last week shows that the country recorded significant gains on several fronts on the basis of promoting gender equality

 The new index shows that Rwanda has, for the past 25 years, achieved unprecedented progress in gender equality on economic transformation, social transformation and transformational governance.

It, however, reveals that there are prevailing challenges.

Land theft from widows in Uganda is common but the tide is now changing

“You must leave, or we will kill you and cut up your children.”   

When Proscovia’s husband of twenty years died of cancer in 2013, his family forcibly removed her from the land he’d left behind for her to raise their three children on. 

Women in half of the countries in the world are unable to assert equal land and property rights despite legal protections, warned members of a new global campaign that formally launches today. The campaign, Stand For Her Land, aims to close this persistent gap between law and practice worldwide so that millions of women can realize these rights in their daily lives.

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2019 – Women in half of the countries in the world are unable to assert equal land and property rights despite legal protections, warned members of a new global campaign that formally launches today.  The campaign, Stand For Her Land, aims to close this persistent gap between law and practice worldwide so that

Women’s economic empowerment is a necessary step to promote women’s rights and achieve gender equality. Throughout the last decades, women have been entering the labor market and, despite the still existing inequalities in terms of wages and opportunities, there are many sectors in which women have achieved great visibility. This is not the case of agriculture and livestock. Currently, women working in rural areas must face a double burden, one linked to the fact of being a woman and one linked to the difficulties of life in the countryside.

KASSERINE/TUNISIA: Souad Gharsalli lives in a rented flat in the center of Kasserine, in western Tunisia, baking and selling artisanal bread to make money. But she should be growing olive trees for a living, she says.

Gharsalli, 47, grew up with three brothers and six sisters on her family’s 7 hectares (17 acres) of land in the region of Kasserine, on which they grew olive trees and grains.

When their father died in 1997, Gharsalli and her sisters inherited half as much land as their brothers, in accordance with Tunisian law.

Such has been their determination to reclaim their rights, particularly land rights, that even the government of Karnataka has acknowledged the force of these women

Her hair is white, her face wrinkled. But her spirits are high as she belies her age to play the drum hanging around her neck. As she twirls round and round, the beating of the drum becomes more frenzied. The message is loud and clear; playing the drum, once considered a symbol of their caste untouchability, is no longer a stigma.

Liberia is in the throes of finalising one of Africa’s most progressive land rights laws but its potential will be thwarted if women are excluded

In the 42-year history of International Women’s Day, there have been huge advances in women’s rights across the world. But despite these strides, many are still fighting for basic human rights, including to life and security.

This is certainly true in my country, Liberia.

WINDHOEK - There is a need to look at ways on creating avenues that would result in more women occupying roles in traditional authorities. This would address some of the social ills women in rural areas are experiencing because of laws that do not necessarily favour women. 

This is according to Wilhelmina Tameca Gaoses, the project manager for the One World, No hunger project at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. 

In more than a decade of working on women’s land rights, I have often been asked the question “where is the evidence?” While we have more and more insight into how secure land rights benefit women, men, and communities, the question remains “how to get there?”: we don’t know as much as we should (or would like!) about what works, or does not, to improve land rights for women.