Beji Caid Essebsi says the measure was a long time coming but some are sceptical about the proposal's motivations.
Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi says he will submit a bill to parliament granting women and men equal inheritance rights, in line with a proposal put forward by a government-backed committee.
In Zimbabwe, Transparency International has been working extensively on land governance issues, and what has emerged is that women are often coerced to engage in sexual acts with a male person in authority in order to have access to land. Land is a form of property and a source of livelihood for most people in Zimbabwe. Both men and women find themselves one way or another being coerced to engage in corruption, mostly bribery to own a piece of land both in the urban and rural/communal areas. However, women are often subjected to sextortion in the quest to own land.
Twenty years ago, I learned a valuable lesson about the power of land and inheritance rights to affirm the status and contributions of women. My father-in-law, then 80 years old, was dividing his land to his children. In doing so, he made a decision that was unusual for a man in Kenya– he gave a piece of land to me, his daughter-in-law. He had come to believe that it was only just to affirm the role that women play in contributing to the household and caring for aging parents.
In the fading afternoon light, Kou Berpa leads a small group out to a patch of land a short distance off of the main road in Ganta, Liberia.
The land is strewn with rocks and dried vegetation. The jagged remains of a tree stump consume one corner. It’s easy to miss the green shoots scattered across the grounds – the beginnings of a crop of corn that Kou has planted.
Few people dispute the transformational impact of the “green revolution” in agriculture that eradicated famine in countries from Mexico to India just over 50 years ago. But as gains in agricultural production have again begun to slow, there are calls for a second green revolution to meet the growing food security needs of the planet.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent unprecedented and increasing global recognition of land rights—especially women’s land rights. Leaders across the globe have included three land-specific sex-disaggregated indicators:
The Land Portal Foundation, Mokoro Ltd and Transparency International co-hosted an interactive webinar on sextortion in land governance and its implications on June 25th, 2018. The webinar featured an interactive discussion among expert panelists. Scroll below to read our interview with Annette Jaitner of Transparency International. She gives us insights into the matter and what sextortion means for land governance.
Women represent the majority of Brazil’s population (51.6% in 2017). However, only 12% of the landowners are women and just 5.5% own agricultural land in Brazil (IBGE, Agricultural Census, 2006). This gender disparity is just part of the immense problem women face in terms of land rights in Brazil. A major issue is the persistent gap between what is in the law and what happens in practice.
A Q&A with Patricia Chaves from Espaço Feminista, Brazil, explains the discrepancies in accessing property and inheritance rights for women in Brazil as well as data that helps to inform grassroots women about their rights. The piece also provides powerful accounts of women's personal experiences.
By Jim Grabham (Mokoro Ltd, UK) with Ezekiel Kereri (HakiMadini, Tanzania), team members of the global Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project.
After years of efforts, land rights are finally getting global attention. With several land-related indicators included in the Sustainable Development Goals, the land sector now has the unique opportunity to create an unprecedented momentum around land tenure issues and bring it to a higher level on the development agenda. Our goal is, of course, to contribute to the success of the SDGs, but also to be part of sustainable development in its real and practical sense!
