PRICE OF MARRIAGE PUSHES LAND OUT OF REACH IN SRI LANKA
It was another day of agony for Rizeena, as she waited with her family at their home in eastern Sri Lanka to meet yet another potential husband for her sister — the 46th time they have tried to find someone to marry her in the past decade.
Most of these meetings last only a few minutes before Rizeena’s parents have to explain that they cannot afford to give her 35-year-old sister Fathima a house in their hometown of Sainthamaruthu, 350 kilometres from the capital Colombo.
“The first question bridegrooms’ families ask is if (she) will be given a house as dowry and when we say we are trying to buy one, they leave,” said Rizeena, who like her sister did not wish to give her real name.
“We just can’t afford it. It is very expensive,” said the mother of three from the front hall of her home, which her parents gave her as dowry.
On Sri Lanka’s eastern coast, land with a house is a must for Muslim women of marrying age, but civil activists say the custom of dowry is sending land prices skyrocketing, leaving many women without partners or future financial security.
“Dowry is an inevitable devil in this culture,” said Minnathul Suheera, a women’s rights activist and sociology lecturer at the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka.
“For an average middle-class family, it’s very difficult to get a huge loan to buy the land and house for dowry,” she said, adding the practice of paying dowry is the root cause of rising land prices in the region.
“It’s a complex issue that nobody wants to address. A lot of people are indebted because of buying land and houses for dowry. There is very little chance of compromising on dowry.”
Land is in high demand along the overcrowded east coast, where government data shows that some communities have more than 100,000 people per square kilometre.
One perch, or 25 square metres, of land in Sainthamaruthu would have sold for 50,000 rupees (US$270) 10 years ago, according to Hasmy Jaya, a land officer at the Sainthamaruthu divisional secretariat.
Today, the same piece of land can go for 800,000 rupees ($4,300), he said.
Such high prices put land out of reach for many families, leaving them with little to pay as a dowry to their daughters’ potential suitors.
Many women in the area have little formal education and cannot find jobs, so they rely on getting married to support themselves. Even women who do work are expected to find husbands more qualified than them, which means their parents will need more land and bigger homes to offer as dowry.
Populations on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast continue to grow, putting more pressure on the amount of available land.
There are currently about 30,000 people living in Sainthamaruthu, according to local government data, an 18% rise since the last census in 2012.
As a result, the amount of land for each family has dropped to a third of what it was a decade ago, said MAM Rafi, another land officer for Ampara district.
“A single house on a 10-perch (250 square metres) piece of land a decade ago has now become a small settlement with many houses and many families,” he said.
Local activists say another factor driving the spike in land prices is affluent Sri Lankan professionals abroad, mainly in the Middle East, buying land as dowry for their sisters and daughters.
In the coastal village of Akkaraipattu, for example, for every three families there is one member working as an expat in the Middle East, according to the civil society group Human Elevation Organisation.
M Sameem, a former expat who was working in Qatar, said rising prices make land a safe place for those working abroad to put their money.
“Expatriates buy land first for their female family members, to be given as dowry, and then they see it as a better investment than keeping the money in savings or in fixed income,” he said.
In the town of Kalmunai, Mohamed Razik, a 54-year-old father of two, has been struggling to complete his 75 sq m house since 2005.
The house is meant for his only daughter, who is 28 and has been waiting to get married for more than a decade. Until it is finished, they have no dowry to offer, Razik said.
The problem, he said, is that he cannot expand the house because there is no land for him to buy.
“They (suitors) all ask for a house on six perch (150 sq m) of land. But, I can’t afford it,” said Razik, who makes just over $1 a day at his food stall.
“I have been using all my savings in the past 15 years to build this house. But, it has become just impossible.”
“Dowry is an inevitable devil in this culture”
MINNATHUL SUHEERA South Eastern University of Sri Lanka