Women & Land

Lee-Smith, D. & Hemmati, M. 2000. Women's Land Ownership and Globalisation. The Network Newsletter, May 2000, No 20, 7. British Council: Manchester

Women's Land Ownership and Globalisation

by Diana Lee-Smith and Minu Hemmati

Women's ownership, control and management of, as well as access to, land and property are crucial aspects of sustainable development. Women, like men, need land as a home, as a means of livelihood and, especially in a globalizing money economy, they need land as a form of wealth or capital. Less than 1% of the world's landed property is owned by women. Despite international agreements and conventions aiming to achieve more equitable ownership and control, progress has been very slow.

History and Inheritance

Women's and men's relation to land have historically differed. Changes in the world economy have led to gender inequities in the way land is controlled and managed. Peasant agricultural production is in transition to cash crop production in most parts of the world. This process has been ongoing for centuries but is gathering speed with globalisation. Historically in subsistence production systems, land was not formally owned, but use rights were vested in men and women who produced food for their kin. With formal ownership and especially titling of land, land rights have been vested in men. Women's lack of equal property rights with men is a major cause of the so-called "feminization of poverty", or rather the impoverishment of women. Men inherit land free whereas women in general do not.

Consequences

In many places, women may be allowed to buy land but in some cases they cannot even do that without offending custom. In such cases, women may obtain land as collectives or women's groups. In addition to problems of legal access, huge inequities in access exist even in countries where women have rights to ownership.

In the Habitat Agenda, governments committed themselves to "Providing legal security of tenure and equal access to land to all people, including women and those living in poverty; and undertaking legislative and administrative reforms to give women full and equal access to economic resources, including the right to inheritance and to ownership of land and other property, credit, natural resources and appropriate technologies." In 1998, the Kigali Plan of Action indicated that "women should have adequate and secure rights to property. These rights must be equal to those of men, and a woman should not be dependent upon a man in order to secure or enjoy those rights."

Without such a right, women may be evicted from their homes as widows or single mothers, especially in cases of land shortage. Existing inequities become even more severe in situations of conflict and reconstruction, where widows and single women cannot inherit either their parents' or their husbands' land and may be comdemned to a life in refugee camps.

Land as Capital

With globalisation and the spread of the money economy, women are further disadvantaged because land becomes capital. Land title deeds are the main form of security used to secure loans and credit. Without such pieces of paper, women find it harder to get loans, which is why they have resorted to other means of obtaining credit, and why numerous initiatives have to be designed to enable them to do so. These include the many forms of micro-finance, women's banking, revolving funds and ‘merry-go-rounds’. Women’s credit needs, although important in the development agenda, must be analysed and understood in the context of their lack of basic property rights as individuals.

Ongoing Work

The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) - the UN body to monitor progress on implementation of Agenda 21 - is addressing issues of "Integrated Planning and Management of Land Resources" at its 8^th Session this year. We hope that the CSD will also consider benchmarks and targets for changes of the proportion of women's and men's land ownership and concrete strategies towards this important goal.

Governments and intergovernmental bodies should commit to for measurable timetables and benchmarks; to constitutions and laws guaranteeing women's equal rights to own and inherit land and property; and to regulation and enforcement of such rights. Governments and donors should also support grassroots and community-based organisations which disseminate rights information and train paralegals.

UNCHS / Habitat has embarked on a Global Campaign on Secure Tenure. The CSD Women's Caucus, the Huairou Commission, the Women's Super Coalition for Housing and Shelter and UNCHS / Habitat are planning a joint Global Campaign on Women's Rights to Land, linked to UNCHS / Habitat's Campaign on Secure Tenure. The campaign will include events at upcoming international and regional meetings to raise awareness on these issues and urge governments and intergovernmental bodies to take action.

__________________________________________________

This article is based on a position paper by the Women's Caucus to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, prepared for its 8^th session, 2000: "Women and Land", by Diana Lee-Smith, Catalina Trujillo and Sylvie Lacroux (United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) / Habitat), in consultation with the Huairou Commission. Available at www.earthsummit2002.org/wcaucus/csdngo.htm

UNCHS / Habitat Campaign on Secure Tenure at www.unchs.org

Authors

Minu Hemmati, Co-facilitator of the CSD NGO Women's Caucus, minush@aol.com

Diana Lee-Smith, UNCHS / Habitat, Gender Unit, P.O. Box 30030, Nairobi, Kenya, T +254 2 623987, F +254 2 624250, diana.lee-smith@unchs.org