We are inspired by the possibility of strengthening women’s land rights as a way to empower women socially and economically. One such potential benefit concerns the ways in which land rights may protect women from domestic or gender-based violence – a relevant topic as the global community observes the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence.
If we want to improve lives and alleviate poverty, achieve food security globally, and guarantee human rights and full dignity for all, we must invest in land rights for women.
Landesa’s Beth Roberts, Gina Alvarado, and Melissa Padilla examine the parallels between reproductive rights, the still-raging fight to affirm equal personhood for women in the United States, and the global movement to advance women’s human rights by securing their rights to land.
The rapid and crucial shift from fossil fuels to renewables has witnessed a familiar trend: Women — especially rural and indigenous women — are severely marginalized in decisions about land use.
To mark International Human Rights Day, Landesa’s Tizai Mauto and women’s land rights & gender expert Grace Ananda explore a few of the most pernicious inequalities to surface from the COVID-19 pandemic, and a common challenge they share: insecure rights to land.
Closing a data gap may seem technocratic and boring. But the social and economic empowerment prospects of more than one billion largely poor women who lack secure, legal land and property rights hinges on the success of these efforts.
The ideal of a married woman decorated with sindoor, sakha, and bichiya is romanticized through legend and folklore; steeped in this culture, women themselves see value in these rituals. Millions of women in India do not even imagine that these discriminatory and patriarchal rituals are not supernaturally ordained and blind them to the reality that the revered status given to suhagins causes untold suffering to any woman (widow) who does not fit the ideal.
The more I listen to women – as they talk about their past experiences, their present needs and their hopes for the future – the more confident I become that a piece of land has the power to break this cycle of oppression and lift women up, empowering them to live a life of dignity, autonomy and self-worth.
The Government of India announced an ambitious effort to map residential areas in villages using drone technology and provide “property cards” to these rural owners. Landesa’s Shipra Deo and Pinaki Halder share several recommendations for implementation.
What if we could alleviate rural poverty, strengthen women’s rights, and help turn the tide against climate change, all at once? In Myanmar, a program to secure land rights for the country’s forest-dwelling communities is helping villages make progress toward all three.