NyumbaYo

Land legislation
A number of different laws regulate women’s right to
land. Ensuring equal rights could begin with analyzing
how existing land legislation, marital (including divorce)
law and inheritance laws interact in terms of women’s
right to land and how statutory law can promote women’s
rights irrespective of their marital status. The drafting of
International conventions related to
gender and right to land
 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
 Beijing Platform for Action
 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Dis-
crimination against Women, Article 16
 Economic and Social Council Commission on the
Status of Women Resolution 42/1, Human Rights and
land rights discrimination
 Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Art.11 (1966)
 Habitat II Conference, Istanbul 1996 Preamble
 Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements (esp.
Par.7) III Commitments D
 Rome Declaration on World Food Security (1996)
 World Food Summit. “African Charter on Human and
Peoples’ Rights” (1986). The United Nations Commis-
sion on Human Rights Resolution 2002/49
new laws on tenure, land redistribution, land reform (for
example in post-conflict settings) and family law, includ-
ing marital and inheritance laws, provides an opening
toward a more gender equal legal framework. Sida can
contribute to the preparatory work of the formal legisla-
tive process by:
-reference

There is a direct relationship between women’s
right to land, economic empowerment, food se-
curity and poverty reduction. A gender approach
to land rights can enable shifts in gender power
relations, and assure that all people, regardless
of s*x, benefit from, and are empowered by,
development policies and practices to improve
people’s rights to land. This brief gives an over-
view on how to consider gender aspects in pro-
jects and programmes addressing land rights.
Women represent 43% of the agriculture labour force.
Yet they rarely own the land they are working on, have
tenure securities or control over the land. Women often
have limited decision-making power and control over
how to use the land or its outputs.
The right to land is regulated either by the formal legal
system or through customary law. There are many exam-
ples of how the two systems can both prevent and pro-
mote women’s right to land. The formal legal systems in
many countries have constitutions or land laws that grant
gender equality in access to land, and at the same time
laws for marriage, divorce and inheritance that contradict
these laws by discriminating against women and daugh-
ters.
While systems of customary law regarding land tenure in
pre-colonial Africa often granted women access to land,
this right was lost in many cases with the introduction of
the idea of individual ownership. Source-Sida 2015