UNEQUAL RIGHTS: WOMEN AND PROPERTY

International Aid Policy DebateKhawaja Ali

15RB909

Structural Engineering Laboratory

Instructor: Prof. Dr. Fujikake.Y

Gender Inequality

• Health

• Education

• Empowerment

• Employment

• Participation in politics

• Discrimination and

violence against women

Women Rights in US-A Brief History

■ During the time of the Revolutionary War(late 1700’s) it was believed that a woman’s brain was smaller in capacity than men’s brain

■ Therefore women were inferior

■ Early 19th Century Women

– Unable to vote

– Single could own her own property but unsafe

– Married no control over her property or her children.

– Could not initiate divorce.

– Couldn’t make wills, sign a contract, or bring suit in court without her husband’s permission.

Cult of Domesticity

Developed throughout 1800’s

The ideal of womanhood had four characteristics:

1. Piety 2. Purity 3. Domesticity 4. Submissiveness

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

■ Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in rights and

dignity. They are endowed with reason and conscious and should

act with one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

■ Article 2: Everyone is entitled with all rights and freedoms set

forth without any distinction such as race, color, gender,

language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social

origin, property, birth or other status..

■ Article 3: Everyone has right to life, liberty and security of life.

■ Article 4: Everyone has right to own property alone as well as in

association with other, no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of

his/her property.

United Nations Human Rights Bodies

http://www.auschwitzinstitute.org/blog/education-for-genprev-24-september-2012/

UN Conferences for Women

First women conference was held in Mexico in 1975 attended by

more than 1000 people

Second conference in 1979 attended by 145 delegates

Third in Nairobi (capital city of Kenya) in 1985

Fourth in Beijing in 1995

■ UNIFEM (united nations development funds for women) came into

existence in 1976

■ Habitat II, the second UN Habitat summit, 1996, Istanbul (United

Nation Human Settlement Programme)

Problems Faced by Women

– Education & illiteracy

– Unemployment

– Domestic violence

– Family problems

– Dowry dilemma

– Male dominated factor

– Own immoveable property, land

– unequal share in parents property

– Neglect in childhood

– Gender bias

– Homeless

The Situation of Women and Property-Problems Identified

Inequalities- The reason

Why property is important for women

Women’s and men’s relation to land & housing

Economic restructuring programs are only one symptom of globalization which privatizes property ownership

Effect of privatization of property on women and men

Patrilineal kinship and Matrilineal kinship

Subsistence production system and formal ownership system

– In former, land was never formally owned, both men and women had rights to use land equally

– In later, patrilineal kinship system is more dominating and men are main property holders

http://www.slideshare.net/capriaccount/cap-ri-fullposterseries

Current Evidence of Inequality

■ Urbanization and rapid growth of unplanned and informal settlements

affect property rights so it affects women more than men

■ Women without husband’s live in refugee camps. (Rwanda and Burndi

in mid 1990s)

■ Women’s lack of equal property rights with men causes feminization of

poverty

■ Men are inherently capital holder but women are not, hence poverty

ensues.

■ In many places, there are legal restrictions on women’s equal rights to

own property

■ Even where women have legally recognized rights, social constraints

can prevent them from being realized (e.g., East Africa)

■ In such cases, women try to obtain land as collectives or women’s

groups

■ This causes discriminations against women and causes poverty

■ A limited data shows that women own less than 1% of world’s property

■ In many countries, women living under religious laws do not have same

rights as men to own property.

■ From recent research, socially discriminatory practices are even more

widespread than had been thought

■ Legal research in three east African countries shows the extent of

disenfranchisement (Benschop 2002)

■ Southeast Asian showing how agrarian customs deny women equal rights

(Tinker and Summerfield 1999b)

■ Kosovo studies also show same situation (Williams & Lee-Smith 2000)

■ The social pressures stop women from having their property rights.

■ These studies reveal the problem of unequal property rights for women is

essentially the same throughout the world.

Current Evidence of Inequality

Collective action on women’s property rights

Bringing women’s concerns to policy level

■ During 1980’s and 1990’s era, pressure for women’s rights came about

■ Campaigns of “housing as a women’s right” were waged in Latin America

■ Issue of unequal property rights resonated powerfully among women from all regions

■ Beijing conference in 1995

– Four global women’s networks formed a “Super-Coalition on Women, Homes and Community” to lobby on women’s issues of homes and communities

■ There were two significant events in Beijing

– The first was about Inheritance clause

– The second was formation of The Huairou Commission

■ Habitat II Conference in Istanbul in 1996

■ Among numerous references in the Habitat Agenda, paragraph 40(b) asserts the commitment of participating states to:

“Providing legal security of tenure and equal access to land to all people, including women and those living in poverty; and undertaking legal and administrative reforms to give women full and equal access to economic resources, including the right to inheritance and to ownership of land

and other property, credit, natural resources and appropriate technologies”.

Policy Action and Interaction

■ International meetings by HABITAT in 1995 in Gavle, Sweden and in

Kigali, Rwanda, in 1998, together with UN development program

(UNDP), the UN fund for women (UNIFEM), and UN high commission

for refugees (UNHCR) (UN-HABITAT 1999)

■ Governments have likewise taken up the challenges

■ In Africa, many countries have made administrative reforms

■ When governments reviewed the implementation of the 1996 Habitat

agenda at a special session of the UN General assembly in 2001,

they made further commitments on women’s property rights

specifically their right to enter into contractual agreements.

■ During the same session, UN bodies agreed to collaborate on

promoting women’s property rights through coordinated action

Collective Action on Women’s Property Rights

Policy Action and Interaction

■ UNDP and UNIFEM proposed to join

forces on women’s property rights with

UN-HABITAT’s Secure Tenure Campaign

and the UN High Commission on

Human Rights (UNHCHR)

As a result of several advocacy events in

2000 and 2001, a larger NGO land

caucus was formed around sustainable

development and human settlement

issues, including women’s property rights.

■ And women’s rights division of human

rights watch has taken up special

initiatives on women’s property rights,

starting in 2002

Collective Action on Women’s Property Rights

The Case of Uganda

■ Use of Uganda is one the most effective efforts so far

■ This has occurred because of active lobby groups that keep this issue in public mind

■ Paralegals know the constitutional rights of women and they explain them to people

■ Paralegals are backed up by NGOs

■ Still some parts of country is not receiving resources required and have no successful approach of equal rights

■ Over 90% of cases are brought forward by women

■ In 1998, it was found that 58% of cases brought involved land and inheritance, and about 20% involved custody and maintenance of children. The remainder dealt with marital conflict and small number were about child defilement.

■ Although several NGOs are running these programs but they are not able to cover the total area, even in the districts where they operate.

■ Local NGOs have kept this initiative alive for over a decade, taking advantage of larger networks such as the Habitat International Coalition and the HuairouCommission to spread the word and employing now proven techniques for ensuring that women attain rights to property (Mazingira Institute 1992-2003).

Collective Action on Women’s Property Rights

Women's Customary Rights in Uganda

■ 2013 UPDATE:

A new National Land Policy was approved by the Ugandan government in April 2013.

It recognizes the gap between women’s land rights in law and in practice and directs the government to pass legislation to “protect the right to inheritance and ownership of land for women and children,” and to ensure equal land rights for men and women in marriage. It calls for an overhaul of the Succession Act and revisions to the Land

Act, and for the restoration of powers of land administration to traditional leaders, provided they are sensitive to the rights of

vulnerable groups.

http://www.focusonland.com/countries/women

s-customary-rights-in-uganda/

Recommendation for Policy and ActionA Theoretical Basis for Policy Recommendation

■ Global recommendation made in the Kigali Plan of Action of 1998 still holds as a clear statement of policy intention:

“Women should have adequate and secure rights to property. These rights must be equal to those of men and a woman should not be dependent upon a man in order to secure or enjoy those rights” (Peace for Homes 1998).

■ Rights and freedoms are not ideas that, one conceived, implement themselves. They must entail the social mechanisms needed to implement them, including economic development.

Martha Nussbaum urges us to engage with the “Capabilities Approach”.

■ This approach is particularly relevant to achieving women’s rights, as women are so often seen as the means to achieve their children’s and families’ well-being rather than as subjects in their own right

■ Women have rights as persons and all persons themselves deserve to be treated with love, care and dignity.

■ Equal property rights are but one aspect of the rights framework that needs to be realized for full human - and sustainable and equitable economic developments (Nussbaum 2000)

A framework for policy and Action

■ Now we have several international policy commitments in place on women’s property rights. What is needed is coordinated action on a broad front to implement them

■ Statement in eight session of the commission on sustainable development still applies

“women’s movements and public agencies need to further coordinate their efforts in campaigning for women’s equal rights to land. All of these ongoing activities need to be linked with CSD activities and synergies built up between partners”

■ In any given case, It may be necessary to

– Address the substance of women’s property rights through research and legal reform.

– Make necessary structural and institutional changes to ensure effective application of the law by the courts, administration and enforcement agencies.

– Address the cultural aspects of shared attitudes and behaviors of the population, including the barriers placed by informal institutions, through education.

Recommendation for Policy and Action

Recommendation

There is a need of further research and data on

the situation of women’s property rights on the

ground and on the effects of actions that being

taken to address them.

References

■ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_the_Unit

ed_States

■ http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translati

ons/eng.pdf

■ http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/

■ Unequal Rights: women and poverty by Diana Lee-Smith and

Catalina Hinchey Trujillo

■ https://www.hrw.org/africa/uganda