By Jeannette Bayisenge Lecturer at University of Rwanda (UR) PhD student at the Department of Social...

By Jeannette BayisengeLecturer at University of Rwanda (UR)

PhD student at the Department of Social WorkUniversity of Gothenburg/Sweden

Securing women’s land rights through land tenure reform

program in Rwanda

March 24, 2014The 2014 World Bank Land and Poverty

conference/Washington DC1

October 15, 2012 PPT ASSWA conference in SA 2

Aim

- Explore and analyse the gender aspect of the process of the LTR in Rwanda

- Capture women’s experiences in reference to their land rights within LTRP in Rwanda

March 24, 2014The 2014 World Bank Land and Poverty

conference/Washington DC3

Presentation overview• Methodology• Background of LTR in Rwanda• Findings

Knowledge and attitudes about LRTP and legal framework regulating it. Women’s decision-making over land and its produce Challenges in ensuring women rights to land

• Conclusion

March 24, 2014The 2014 World Bank Land and

Poverty conference/Washington DC4

Methodology• Area of study: Northern part of the Country

• Data collection tools: – Semi-structured interviews with implementers at different

levels, coordinators of CNF (National women’s council ), etc– FGD with local land committees, local mediators “Abunzi”,

and women’s associations– Case studies– Agricultural Household survey with 477 women from

different background



Inheritance law of 1999

The constitution of 2003

Land policy 0f 2004 Organic land law of

2005 modified in 2013

Inheritance law of 1999

The constitution of 2003

Land policy 0f 2004 Organic land law of

2005 modified in 2013

LTR programs by WB, IFAD, USAIDLTR programs by WB, IFAD, USAID

Ensuring gender equality in land rights

Ensuring gender equality in land rights

LTR programs in Rwanda2006-2013

LTR programs in Rwanda2006-2013



Why is it important to ensure land rights to women?



• Women owned only 1%of the world’s resources, while constituting 50 per cent of the world’s population (UN, 1980:8)

• Women produce between 60 and 80 per cent of all food crops in African countries ( Daley&Englert, 2010)

• Over 71.7% of Rwandans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.82% of women work in agriculture compared to with 61% of men agriculture (EICV3, 2012)

• The 1994 Tutsi genocide and the HIV epidemic increased the number of FHH to 33.6% (National Gender statistics report 2013,11)

Land registration and titling



By June 2012, 10.3 million of land parcels were recorded and 8.4 million titles issued to people

04/19/23 Int'l Social Work conference-Kampala 9

Women’s knowledge in relation to legal framework regulating land in Rwanda

•Little awareness about land related laws where 4/5 of the women in the study said are not familiar with it

•Education, being member of women’s association, having a leadership position and participation in public meetings increase their level of knowledge.


Women's attitudes

•Nearly 2/3 support joint titles weather marriage is registered or not•2/3 of ever married women have registered their marriage•73.2% support that individual titles non registered wives in polygamous marriage•¼ don’t support equal inheritance rights between children


Land titles and women’s decision making over land

•98.7% said that land title improves their land tenure security and participation in decision making

•Those with independent tiles said that they have full control of their land as long as they hold land certificate with their names in their hand.•Those with joint title are sure that their husbands cannot sell it without their consent however they are still many failing cases

•No much changes has been made with regard to the daily management of land and its produce

•Nearly 1 out five of the respondents have requested for loans in financial institutions. Among them, 76.8% of them have used land as a guarantee


Women's attitudes

•Nearly 2/3 support joint titles weather marriage is registered or not•2/3 of ever married women have registered their marriage•73.2% support that individual titles non registered wives in polygamous marriage•¼ don’t support equal inheritance rights between children

Challenges to women’s land rights



Polygamy: (Ubuharike n’ubushoreke)• Formal polygamy and various form of modern polygamy referred to as

private polygamy or outside marriage.• 14.8% of women in the study live in polygamous relationships

either as the first or subsequent wives• The majority of participants and respondents in this study recognise

polygamy as one of the main cause of land related conflicts

Inheritance• Equal inheritance rights to both girls and boys/ husband and wife • Nearly ¼ of the respondents don’t support equal share between girls

and boys and believe that boys should have bigger share. • No-retroactivity of the law• Conflict between widows and their in laws• Possible rejection of women who failed to bring land with them when

they marry

Unwillingness of men to regularise their marriage• 1/3 of married women is not registered/informal

marriage• Men are reluctant to register their marriage because

once they do so, automatically the wives have rights to equal share of the matrimonial property

• Yet women continue to be engaged in informal marriages due to different reasons





Little knowledge about land related laws 4/5 of the respondents said that they were not familiar with land related laws

Slowness in mind-set changing Patriarchal power structures that give supremacy to men are still strong. Therefore deeply embedded socio- cultural norms and values do not facilitate the adaptation to new changes (¼ don’t support equal sharing between children)

Conclusion

• Large support of the idea that women should have land titles and the effort of the GoR to fight against gender imbalances in land related rights

• Land titling can empower and give positive outcomes to women. However it is not obvious as many other factors play a big role

• Norms, values, gender relations as well as land rights are embedded into complex and diverse realities of local people

• Theory and practice dilemma where laws and policies that look good on papers are not necessarily easily implemented and intentions of the laws do not necessarily seem to be logical to the local people as well as to the implementers.


• Women from some categories seem to be more disadvantageous compared to others when it comes to the land laws literacy, the ability to claim their rights and attitudes vis-à-vis the LTRP

• Strategies aiming at strengthening women’s land rights should not look at women as a homogenous group but rather as having particular specificities that are important to consider.



By Jeannette Bayisenge Lecturer at University of Rwanda (UR) PhD student at the Department of Social...

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