Uganda: Women Denied Their Land Rights
By Peter Omondi
Despite some positive steps at the level of legal reform, women’s rights to land have yet to become fully realized in Uganda and the reality for women in Uganda is too often characterized by entrenched patterns of exclusion. This is according to findings from a recent survey conducted jointly by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), a Geneva-based international housing rights watchdog, and the Women's Land Link Africa (WLLA), a joint initiative of organizations dedicated to improving women's land and housing rights in Africa.
The report--- The Impact of National Land Policy and Land Reform on Women in Uganda—examines Uganda’s national land policy and land reform processes and their impact on women.
The survey was conducted in 2009 to assess the gender-sensitivity of national land policy and land reform processes and their impact on women. The survey was conducted
in the districts of Kapchorwa, Luweero and Kampala. In total, 60 women were surveyed, with 15 in Luweero,
20 in Kapchorwa, and 25 in Kampala. These included grassroots women, married women with and without income, single women and some professionals. In Kampala district, researchers targeted policymaking and policy-influencing categories of women, including women parliamentarians, key women land reform activists and other stakeholders.
Luweero and Kapchorwa are among the districts in which ULA activities have traditionally been concentrated. Both districts have distinct land tenure regimes - customary land tenure and leasehold land tenure regimes. It is important to consider these different tenure regimes in order to compare the different experiences that women have under each system.
Among the key findings was a general lack of information about women’s land rights. In general terms, while women were aware that there are some laws and policies that protect their land rights, they often did not know the details of such protections or where they could turn to for help.
“In the rural setting, women knew only about the 1995 Constitution, but not any of the other laws and policies protecting their equal rights to land. Most women were not fully informed of the Land Act or the ongoing National Land Policy process”, the report says. It adds: “Only some women knew that the Amendment to the Land Act of 2004 provided that before a man can dispose of family land he has to seek the consent of his wife. However, despite the consent clause, the reality remains that the patriarchal system is still entrenched, and men still dominate the decision-making in the family.”
According to the report, the majority of women did not have land in their own right because in most cases, even when they save money to purchase land, land agreements are written in their husband’s names and the woman signs only as a witness.
There is also lack of participation of women in Land Policy
Formulation: it is noteworthy that the process of formulating revisions to the national Land Policy and the Constitution are ongoing. These processes have gone through a series of consultations, including with grassroots communities, to ensure that these reforms embrace the interests and aspirations of all categories of people.
Various stakeholders, including civil society organizations, have been consulted and their views have been considered.
The Civil Society National Land Policy Working Group was also established to engage the process. The Group is comprised of organizations that work towards the protection of the rights of vulnerable and marginalized people, including women, and have endeavoured to ensure that women’s interests and rights to land and property rights are included.
However, the survey showed that grassroots women are not adequately consulted on land policy and that the majority of those participating did not have knowledge of the ongoing land reform processes. In most cases, only women in decision-making positions had knowledge of or could report having participated in the reform process.
It does not help matters that the prevailing cultural attitudes discriminate against women. To most policy-makers and women in more privileged social positions, the current land laws accords a lot of protection to women; however, it is obvious that rural, illiterate women have not similarly benefited from the policies that are in place.
“Women in rural communities are still largely at the mercy of customary practices and traditional legal systems that most often look to men as sole owners of property, including land”, the report says.
Then there is the lack of formal land ownership by women. Only 8 percent of married women reported that they own land in their own right. Among the six women who reported that they own land in Kapchorwa during the survey, five inherited the land from their parents, while one purchased it using her savings.
As far as land inheritance is concerned, women noted that the legally-sanctioned ways in which land is acquired tend to favour men. Inheritance was a particular challenge because most often land and property was passed down through the male line, reinforcing women’s exclusion and lack of economic empowerment. While for some segments of Ugandan society the old traditions are changing, the vast majority of Ugandan women continue to be unable to inherit land.
Access to justice also remains elusive to most women. Women, particularly rural women, find it difficult to access and make use of the judicial systems because of the challenges within the justice sector such as bribery and corruption, as well as the high costs associated with managing and bringing cases. Besides, as many women emphasized, the court process is slow.
Before colonialism, most of Uganda’s land was held communally, except in those areas where a system of feudalism had begun. Women in the pre-colonial era, upon marriage, had access to land on which they had exclusive rights to cultivation. They themselves owned the fruits of their labour, namely the crops they produced from the land. However, as a result of the Buganda Land Agreement of 1900, which parceled out land in Buganda, land control shifted from clans to chiefs, and some of it was retained as Crown Land.
In the late 1990s, major legal reforms took place in the country, starting with the promulgation of the 1995 Constitution. The Government has focused on the design of policies and programmes that are gender-sensitive and speak to the needs of Uganda’s women. Chapter 4 of the Constitution (and in particular articles 31–33) provides for equality between men and women, including in respect to the acquisition and holding of land. Under Article 31 (1) of the Constitution, men and women above the age of eighteen years are accorded equal rights in marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
These provisions on equality are further strengthened by the principles of affirmative action, provided for under Articles
21, 32 and 33 of the Constitution, which seek to remedy the historical discrimination. Despite these provisions, women still suffer discrimination when it comes to land ownership.
The report comes up with a raft of recommendations. Among them is that the National Land Policy should fully reflect and embrace women’s right to equality in access, ownership and control of land, and when finalized should be used as a basis to amend and reconcile other relevant laws so that the concerns and interest of marginalized and vulnerable people, particularly women, are fully and comprehensively addressed by the legal framework in Uganda.
The Land Act and the Succession Act, for example, should be harmonized to provide adequate protection to widows and women whose marriages may have ended.
The State should work in collaboration with civil society organizations to translate the National Land Policy into indigenous languages and engage community leaders to
disseminate it broadly. This information must be communicated in a way that is clear, accessible, and easy for grassroots women to understand.