Kenya’s 2010 constitution guaranteed women extensive land and property rights. But the message wasn’t getting out to the remote communities of the north until a community radio station stepped in.
GARISSA, KENYA – As sun sets on Sankuri village, a group of women take advantage of the dropping temperatures to convene their weekly business meeting.
MAGDALENA AKINYI* HAD a feeling something was amiss when, in 2012, total strangers started coming over to survey her land in Kakamega. The 46-year-old mother of four eventually found out that her husband, who was working in Nairobi, had married a second wife and sold the 4 hectares of land that he and Akinyi had purchased together during their 12 years of marriage.
“I confirmed he had sold the land, and I decided to sue them both – my husband and the buyer – for violation of the law, as my husband had not consulted me before selling the land,” Akinyi says.
Lakshadweep and Meghalaya are the best among all 35 states and union territories of India at providing land rights to women, while Punjab and West Bengal are the worst, according to an index created by the Bhubaneswar-based Center for Land Governance, an arm of consultancy firm NR Management Consultants (NRMC).
For over fifty years, Hamisi Bidii farmed a small piece of land 50km north of Mombasa in Kilifi County, Kenya. Hamisi grew cashew nuts, palm and mango trees on his four-acre plot – which provided a modest income for his family – and served his community and country as a local Administration Chief in the years immediately following Kenya’s independence.
On February 14th we will examine the most effective strategies to combat women’s diminishing land rights within communities.
Individual titling is the most commonly accepted strategy for protecting women’s land rights, but it it is not without its problems. It can lead to increased domestic violence or result in women being run off their land. The webinar's guest presenters -- Rachael Knight of Namati and Judy Adoko of Land and Equity Movement of Uganda (LEMU) -- suggest a more effective strategy.
One man is dead, another languishes in prison, a widow is destitute and her grandchildren have been forced out of school and into casual labour. These are the devastating impacts of corruption and conflict surrounding one small plot of land in the Central Region of Uganda.
Latin America - Firewood for fuel, fruits to feed their families, palm fiber for baskets, medicinal plants to heal their children — women in forest-dwelling communities in Latin America use a wide array of products from their farmland and forests in their daily tasks.
But when it comes to tenure rights to those forests or participation in decisions about their management, women are often left on the sidelines.
“Gender, Land and Mining in Mongolia” is the product of two years of rigorous field research in Mongolia in collaboration with the Mongolian NGO, People Centered Conservation (PCC). It is the first country research report by the WOLTS (Women’s Land Tenure Security) project team at Mokoro and involved repeat rounds of both quantitative and qualitative participatory fieldwork to validate results.
Female farmers in Nigeria and Africa at the weekend called on leaders of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, to help them address issues of land rights.
Chairperson, Pan African Rural Women Assembly, an umbrella body for rural farmers in Africa, Nnenna Ejim, called on the leaders to recognize the crucial roles women play in agriculture.
Some commercial farmers in Zambia's have acquired thousands of hectares while ignoring laws meant to prevent forced evictions, writes Juliana Nnoko-Mewanu from Human Rights Watch
The Marathwada region of Maharashtra is known for its drought-stricken conditions. Farmer suicides have been on the rise and families of the farmers are always on the fear that they would be losing their loved ones to the drought.
To add to plight, if the farmer belongs to the Dalit community, the struggles of the individual are more pronounced. The story of Kantabai Ichake entails similar struggles – a 70-year-old Dalit woman who is among many who have spearheaded the fight of Dalit women across Marathwada.
