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The Foggy Entitlement: Laws and Policy Changes for Women’s Right to Land

Govind Kelkar

Landesa/Rural Development Institute, New Delhi

For UNDP/APRC Women’s A2J Consultation

June 9-10, 2014, Bangkok

Laws and Policies for Women’s Right to Land

• Legal frameworks in the region and within a country. The past decade witnessed a serious questioning of the persistence of gender inequality in land ownership.

• Results in laws and policy measures for women’s right to land:

China- Land contracting law in China (2003) stipulates that women and men have equal rights in contracting land and the contract issuing party (the Village Council) cannot take away her original contracted land unless she receives land in her marital village.

• Enacted to reinforce the 1949 Agrarian reform law which gave women the right to own land in their names.

Laws and Policies for Women’s right to land

• Indonesia: In 2010 Draft Government Regulation of AgrarianReform and Stewardship of Land (in a stalemate, for furtherdiscussion), a policy reform for women’s right to land.

• Women’s access to justice is a critical issue pursued by women’smovement, initiated by the National Commission for Womenand women’s groups.

• Pakistan: While the Constitution of Pakistan gives women theright to own and control property, but the realization of theserights needs to understood in the context of larger culturalframework that many a times supersedes her constitutionalright.

• Sind: the Sindh Land Distribution (2008) implemented in 17districts, with 6,000 land titles distributed because women weretraditionally left out of land reform and had limitedopportunities to own land

Laws and Policies for Women’s right to land

• India: The Hindu Succession Amendment Act (2005) brings women’s equality as daughters to inherit agricultural land and property, daughter’s right at birth as coparcener, on par with the son.

• 12th Five Year Plan (2013-2017) came up with a general conclusion that measures for joint title to land introduced in 1986, 6th Five Year Plan have not worked, hence the policy for land titles in individual names of women.

• Or land and group titles to women as the valid category of land owners.

• Where joint titles have been realized, these should be made partionable rights for women.

Challenges in Implementation: Why do land governance systems fail women?

• In patriarchal system of land ownership in most of Asia,(including Pakistan and Indonesia) women’s right to land islimited only to use rights.

• Social norms support the ideological system of family whichmaintains women’s dependency on men

• Continuing tradition of the man as the head of the householdalso maintained in policy norms and development practices.

• Inheritance practices disfavour women.

• Lack of formal documentation of land in vast number of landrecords.

• Women’s complicity, ignorance and reluctance to assert theirrights to land, civil society also shares this general reluctance.

• Increasing awareness regarding women’s rights to land incommunities, women’s groups, civil society organisations andpolicy implementation bodies.

• Gender sensitivity and gender balance in land and revenueadministration.

• Addressing and understanding cultural norms. Patriarchal culturalnorms are clearly one of the slow moving institutions whilepolicies and laws for women’s legal rights to land inheritances arerelatively fast moving institutions. Concerted efforts toimplement these policies can influence change for egalitariangender and social relations.

Towards Closing the Gender Gap in Land Rights

Towards Closing the Gender Gap in Land Rights

• Research, surveys and documentation: how and in whatcircumstances are women better able to advocate forthemselves and their daughters rights.

• Shifting land titles in women’s names in select areas: learningsfrom these practices/examples in (Uttar Pradesh, India casestudy)

• Legal literacy of women and men with regard to women’s landrights.

• Individualisation of human rights and individualisation ofcapabilities.