Forward to one-woman, one-hectare campaign

WHILE the government is changing its policy around land expropriation in a way that may benefit many previously disadvantaged people, it has still not passed laws to secure and protect communal land tenure.

In the end, it is mainly black women who suffer as a result of this. Close to 17 million South Africans living mainly in the former homelands lack secure and formal land rights. They remain at constant risk of being deprived of these rights through corrupt relations between state actors, traditional leaders and multinational companies.

It is particularly in these areas, which are sites of persistent poverty and inequality, where women are an integral part of agricultural production and food security.

A reality of the South African countryside is that female-headed households feature prominently, as rural men historically migrate due to the lack of employment and other income-generating opportunities.

This trend persists, and herein lies the initial tier of hope that the radical amendment to the property clause may portend – hope for the future of the household and a new dream to break the cycle of poverty for the daughters and sons in our impoverished rural communities through provision of land to ensure shelter and food security.

Now is the time for us to champion the One-Woman, One-Hectare Campaign first proposed by the Commission on Gender Equality. It calls for the state to allocate one hectare of land, for the growing of food, to rural female-headed households, since there is a direct link between women’s right to land, economic empowerment, food security and poverty reduction. Where women have land, their families generally are better nourished, better educated and better able to break cycles of poverty.

But for many mothers and daughters, this dream will be cut short if they continue having limited decision-making power and control over land. As it is now, women rarely own the land they are working on, or have poor tenure security and rights to the land.

Some customary legal arrangements, and laws on marriage, divorce and inheritance, can at times discriminate against women and daughters, preventing them from owning land. Women’s tenure security and access to land must be dealt with as part of the programme of radical socioeconomic transformation in the country. Women’s right to land in rural areas, as well as the right to partake in decisions about land, must be recognised and strengthened in future legislation.

Gender-based discrimination can also curb rural women from equitable access to education, productive resources, technologies, capital and support services, thus undermining ways in which they can most efficiently work the land.

Women in farming communities must be prioritised in any land redistribution programme. More women are also needed in agricultural education and training, research and extension services, technology, finance, and agricultural policy-making and implementation.

Now is most certainly the time for women to take centre stage in shaping not only the debate, but also the strategies and policies that will flow from the new imaginings around land redistribution stemming from last month’s parliamentary vote.