Put women at the forefront

AUGUST affords South Africa an opportunity to celebrate women. The month reminds us about the struggles of South African women dating back to the audacious deeds witnessed at the Union Buildings on August 9, 1956, when women stood to resist the pass laws of the apartheid regime.

Today, women’s land rights remain one of the most important sites of social, political and economic contestation in post-colonial Africa.

Land is not only a source of food, employment and income; it also gives social prestige and access to political power.

The president has said the Constitution will be amended to allow expropriation of land without compensation. Women should be at the forefront to make sure this announcement contributes towards their economic emancipation. It’s high time women play their vital role in shaping the economy.

The land audit (report) released this year indicates that women own least of the land compared with their male counterparts.

Land has long been recognised as key to advancing the socio-economic rights and well-being of women in society. However, access, control and ownership of land largely remain the domain of male privilege, entrenching patriarchal structures of power and control over community resources, history, culture and tradition. For most women, especially in Africa, access to land is still linked to relationship with a male family member and is forfeited if the relationship ends.

The lack of attention to gender equality reinforces the marginalised position of women and undermines mainstreaming efforts to improve women’s rights. It also hampers strategies for economic development.

While civil society advocacy and government programmes to reform disparities in land-tenure regimes have removed some of the historical legal barriers, land remains an unachievable aspiration for the majority of the rural and urban poor women on the continent. Women’s prospects for socio-economic upliftment through secure tenure appear grim, more so as the global demand for land for agriculture and mining increases land scarcity, fuelling a rise in land prices and fierce competition for control.

The de facto existence of a dual system of statutory law and indigenous customary law in many countries allows men to manoeuvre from one to the other as it favours them.

The complexity of legal systems narrows women’s access to justice as they often lack knowledge about legal procedures and their rights.

Legislative and institutional reforms must engage with custom to deconstruct and re-conceptualise traditional notions of land access, control and ownership.

… It’s high time they play their vital role in the economy

Nkwe Estate, Midrand