TRES/008/10/2013 – Women’s Land and Property Rights in Africa
We, the participants of the NGO Forum preceding the 54th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and the 28th African Human Rights Book Fair held from 18th – 20th October, 2013 in Banjul, The Gambia
Guided by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa,
Inspired by the African Women’s Decade (AWD) (2010-2020), as launched by the African Union, with the aim to advance gender equality through the acceleration of the implementation of global and regional decisions and commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and which is operating under the theme “Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment,”
Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa, and recalling in particular Arts. 7, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 21 which, inter alia, require States parties to: promote women’s access to and control over productive resources such as land; grant women, regardless of their marital status, access to adequate housing; guarantee women’s right to property; provide women with access to clean drinking water, sources of domestic fuel, land, and the means of producing nutritious food, ensure that in case of separation, divorce or annulment of marriage, women and men have the right to an equitable sharing of the joint property deriving from the marriage; ensure widows have a right to an equitable share in the inheritance of the property of her husband, and ensure that women and men, and boys and girls, have the right to inherit, in equitable shares, from their parents’ estate,
Reaffirming the Framework and Guidelines for Land Policy in Africa, adopted by the African Union in 2009, and in particular its provisions related to strengthening the land rights of women, and recognizing the work of the Land Policy Initiative to achieve this aim,
Recalling international human rights law and in particular the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,
Reaffirming commitments made by African governments to support women’s equal access to productive resources, under the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals,
Recalling additional international standards related to women’s land and property rights, including Resolution 2005/25 of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on ‘Women’s equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing,’ Resolution 2004/28 of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on ‘Prohibition of Forced Evictions,’ Resolution 20/7 of the Governing Council of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) on ‘Gender equality in human settlements development,’ and Resolution 42/1 of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on ‘Human rights and land rights discrimination,’
Understanding that ‘women’s rights to land’ entail the ability of women to own, directly benefit from, use, access, control, transfer, inherit and otherwise take decisions about land and related resources, and to enjoy security of tenure as defined under international human rights law,
Reaffirming that women’s access to, use of, and control over land is essential to ensuring gender equality and forms an essential basis of women’s social, political and economic empowerment, and that land and property rights have major implications for the achievement and enjoyment of women’s human rights such as the right to equality, food, health, housing, water, sanitation, work and education,
Affirming that women’s contributions to effective use of land are enormous on the Continent – women produce the majority of food grown in Africa and have developed strategies to ensure both community development and sustainability of farming practices,
Deeply Concerned that despite these enormous contributions, women in Africa, particularly women living in extreme poverty, women affected by HIV and AIDS, and victims of domestic violence, continue to suffer multiple or aggravated forms of discrimination, and that all of these situations are aggravated when women are denied their land and property rights,
Deeply concerned also that throughout Africa, gender inequality when it comes to land and other productive resources too often lies at the heart of women’s poverty and exclusion and that land grabbing, climate change, forced relocation and forced eviction have a disproportionately severe impact on women,
Calls upon the African Commission to urge African governments to:
- ratify the African Charter and the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa;
- comply fully with their international and regional obligations and commitments related to protecting, promoting and ensuring women’s land and property rights, including by ensuring that they provide a consistent legal and regulatory frameworks that enshrine women’s land and property rights, including, inter alia, through national civil codes, personal status, family and marriage law, property law, as well as housing and/or land law. Such provisions should (a) include specific recognition of women’s joint ownership of marital property and right to possession of the marital home and property upon the death of a spouse; (b) recognize women’s indirect contributions to the acquisition of marital property as bearers of the care responsibilities; (c) provide for equal inheritance rights for girls and boys; (d) criminalize property grabbing from widows and surviving children; and (e) prohibit cultural practices that do not enable women to enjoy their independent land and property rights in practice including forced widow inheritance;
- transform through review, amendment and/or repeal all laws and regulations, customs and practices — including statutory, religious and customary — which discriminate against women or which in any way limit or negatively affect their access to, use of, and control of land and other productive resources;
- support the transformation of customs and traditions that discriminate against women and deny women security of tenure and equal ownership of, access to, use of, and control over land and equal rights to own property and to adequate housing, including through popular education campaigns;
- provide women legal protection against forced eviction, as well as land and property grabbing at the hands of both public and private actors;
- ensure that the widows have continued occupancy and use rights with respect to the marital home as well as to moveable and immovable property, including land, without pre-condition;
- provide access to justice and ensure effective remedies for violations of women’s land and property rights, including restitution and compensation, and provide/fund legal services for women seeking judicial redress;
- support the efforts of grassroots women to develop community driven initiatives to provide effective access to justice to women who face discrimination in their access and control over land, including through alternative dispute resolution, use of customary legal structures, paralegal support, watchdog groups, and other initiatives;
- support customary legal structures to ensure human rights protection and greater access to justice by communities;
- conduct sensitization programs and provide judges, lawyers, political and other public officials, community and religious leaders and other concerned persons with information and human rights education concerning women’s equal access to and control over land, property and adequate housing and encourage them to raise awareness amongst their constituencies and within their communities on these issues;
- ensure the right of women to equal treatment in land and agrarian reform as well as in land resettlement schemes and in ownership of property and in adequate housing and to take other measures to increase land access for women living in poverty, particularly households headed by single women;
- encourage financial lending institutions to ensure that their policies and practices do not discriminate against women, and enable women to have access to financial and credit schemes on the basis of the principle of gender equality;
- integrate women’s land and property rights into national HIV/AIDS strategies, as well as agricultural and land policies, specifically allocating resources to programs that support investment in women smallholder farmers increase women’s access to land, property and inheritance.
Invites African Governments to promote at all levels, including at the highest level, the full realization of women’s rights to land and property in national, regional and international initiatives.
Done in Banjul, The Gambia on 20th October, 2013
