Women and Inheritance in 5 Sub-Saharan African Countries: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy and Practice Change
- Collection Type:
- Articles
- Country:
- Multiple Countries, Mozambique, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda
- Creator:
- Cooper, E.
- Year:
- 2010
Full citation: Layish, Aharon, 2006. Women and Islamic Law in a Non-Muslim State.
Full citation: Tesfa, H., "Women and Land Rights in Ethiopia: A Comparative Study of Two Communities in Tigray and Oromiya Regional States," EASSI REPORT (The Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women, 2002).
Full citation: Kulkarni, S., Tiwari, S. and Bhat, S., "Women and Land Rights in Maharashtra: Exploring the Facilitating and Constraining Factors in Achieving Resource Rights," SOPPECOM DESK STUDY (2008).
Full citation: Budlender, D. and Alma, E., "Women and Land: Securing Rights for Better Lives," IDRC PAPERS (November 2011). - This book focuses on recent findings from sub Saharan Africa on women and land. It finds:
• Participation-oriented research methods are much more likely to bring about immediate benefits than other, more traditional research methods.
• Merely passing legislation is of little effect without the necessary resources for implementation, without informing and educating all relevant actors on the provisions of the legislation, without monitoring the reforms, and without effective sanctions on failure to implement.
• It is crucial both to consult and involve women when designing reforms and monitoring their implementation.
• Women’s access to land does not simply hinge on a choice between customary and statutory systems. Rather, we are faced with a more complex question of how the two systems interact and are used by different groups of women and men. The research also emphasizes the need to think about customary law as “living” and evolving.
• Addressing land injustices requires varied approaches that streamline and consolidate numerous land laws in a given country. It is vital to establish and maintain links among research, policy, practice, and people.
• The importance of providing teaching and training in a variety of disciplines for a young generation of women in Africa cannot be overstated.
[Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]
This document lists important constitutional and legal provisions for women in India and provides some useful statistics.
Full citation: UNEP-UN, "Women and Natural Resources: Unlocking the Peacebuilding Potential," UNITED NATIONS REPORT (2013).
Full citation: Pedersen, R. H. and Haule, S., "Women, Donors and Land Administration: The Tanzania Case," 19 DIIS WORKING PAPER (2013).
Full citation: Alvarado, G. et al. (2015). “Women, Land and Law in Vietnam.” ICRW.
Synthesis Report Based on Findings from Three Global Case Studies; Côte d’Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, and Peru.
Full citation: Mehra, R., "Women, Land and Sustainable Development," 1 ICRW WORKING PAPER (1995).
Full citation: Kameri-Mbote, P., "Women, Land Rights and the Environment: The Kenyan Experience," 49(3) DEVELOPMENT (2006).
Full citation: Doss, C., Truong, M., Nabanoga, G. and Namaalwa, J., "Women, Marriage and Asset Inheritance in Uganda," 184 CPRC WORKING PAPER (Chronic Poverty Research Centre 2010). - The study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. The first phase involved interviewing focus groups and key informants about assets held by men and women in the communities and on patterns of acquisition and social norms surrounding asset ownership and inheritance. The second phase was a household and intra-household survey. Life-history interviews were also conducted. The study found that many women gain access to land or ownership through their marital relationships. Both husbands and wives often indicate that land is owned jointly. However, rights over land differ for men and women, with women having fewer rights than men. Women do inherit land, both from their fathers and from their husbands, although it is much more common for men to inherit land. While women may successfully access land through their husbands, and may even claim ownership, these rights frequently depend on the stability of the marriage. Under most customary systems, a widow can claim land that belonged to her husband only if she has a son. The land will be inherited by the son, and the mother can continue to farm it until the son is grown-up and can claim it. Women without sons are at risk of losing access to the land, depending on their relationships with their husband’s family and the community. In spite of this arrangement, some widows have been able to maintain independent claims on land. [Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]
Full citation:PANAP, "Women Reclaim Our Seeds," PANAP REPORT (2013).
Full citation: ICJ, "Women's Access to Justice in Kazakhstan: Identifying the Obstacles & Need for Change," ICJ REPORT (2013).
Full citation: Harrington, A., "Women's Access to Land in Kenya," 4(1) JUSTICE FOR THE POOR BRIEFING NOTE (The World Bank, January 2010).
Full citation: Jayoti Gupta, Women Second in the Land Agenda, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY, May 4 2002
Full citation: Harari, M., (2016). Women’s inheritance rights and bargaining power: evidence from Kenya. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Full citation: Deininger, K., Goyal, A. and Nagarajan, H., "Women's Inheritance Rights and Intergenerational Transmission of Resources in India," 46 THE JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOUCES 2 (2013). - Using inheritance patterns over three generations of individuals, this study assesses the impact of changes in the Hindu Succession Act, which grant daughters equal coparcenary birth rights in joint family property, that were denied to daughters in the past. The study shows that the amendment significantly increased daughters’ likelihood to inherit land, but that even after the amendment, substantial bias persists. There were no detectable changes before the legal amendment, with a sharp increase in land bequests to daughters occurring only after HSAA became effective. The effect persists over time, showing a modest but significant upward trend, in line with a gradual pattern of dissemination and learning. [Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]
Full citation: Rose, L., "Women’s Land Access in Post-Conflict Rwanda: Bridging the Gap Between Customary Land Law and Pending Land Legislation " 13(197) TEXAS JOURNAL OF WOMEN AND THE LAW 197 (2004).
This framework is intended to help you assess the current situation for women’s land rights in a specific country, state, or community.
Kenya and International Women's Human Rights Clinic at Georgetown Univeristy Law Center
Full citation: UNIFEM, "Women's Land and Property Rights in Situations of Conflict and Reconstruction: A READER Based on the February 1998 Inter-Regional Consultation in Kigali, Rwanda," UNIFEM PUBLICATION (2001).
Full citation: ActionAid International, "Women's Land Rights," ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL DISCUSSION PAPER (March 2006).
Full citation: Menon, N., van der Meulen Rodgers, Y., and Nguyen, H. (2014). “Women’s Land Rights and Children’s Human Capital in Vietnam.” World Development, 54, 18-31. - Vietnam’s 1993 Land Law created a land market by granting households land-use rights which could be exchanged, leased, and mortgaged. Using a matched household sample from Vietnam’s 2004 and 2008 Household Living Standards Survey, this study analyzes whether land titling for women led to improvements in child health and education. Results from the land market indicate that female-only held land-use rights decreased the incidence of illness among children, increased their health insurance coverage, raised school enrollment, and reallocated household expenditures toward food and away from alcohol and tobacco. These effects were almost all stronger than in households with male-only or jointly-held land-use rights.
[Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]
Full citation: International Land Coalition. (2013). “Women’s land rights and gender justice in land governance: pillars in the promotion and protection of women’s human rights in rural areas.” Synthesis of contributions by members, partners and individual experts in the International Land Coalition’s network to the e-consultation facilitated by GI-ESCR and IWRAW-AP. - While this document covers all categories of threats, the greatest emphasis is on “pervasive patriarchy, which creates legal, political and economic limitations to the advancement of women. Across the developing world, rural women suffer widespread gender-based discrimination in laws, customs and practices causing severe inequalities in their ability to access, control, own and use land and limiting their participation in decision-making at all levels of land governance. This synthesis of submissions resulting from a consultation, to which 19 members, partners and individual experts from the International Land Coalition’s network responded, highlights the threats to women’s legal and customary land rights. Contributors to the consultation emphasized the need to achieve de facto equality, the diversity of rural women and tenure, as well as the importance of women’s participation in land governance. The synthesis closes with specific recommendations to the CEDAW Committee to reaffirm women’s land rights as a fundamental human rights issue for rural women. [Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]