Gender, governance and land policies
Galpin, Claire
In international Law and in many national Constitutions, the equality of rights between men and women is a constant. However it is clear that its application is mixed. Indeed it is often admitted neither by custom nor by practice. The inequality of rights and particularly the right of access to land is a factor of poverty among women and their families in both urban and rural environments. Women do have access to land but their rights are often precarious due to lack of formalization or recognition in good and proper form. These rights are dependent of the willingness of the husband or family. These rights are intimately linked to relationship with husband or in-laws. In many countries, women lose all or part of their rights in the event of widowhood, divorce, abandonment or even due to male migration. Tenure is in practice shared. Shared tenure means a wide range of rights shared by minimum two individuals. These rights are part of the continuum of rights that describes the spatial occupation, land ownership. They go from informality often described as irregular or illegal occupation to proper legal form formality. Shared tenure is often a de facto recognition of the right of shared occupation, shared use rights but also shared, the acquisition by prescription, special concessions or joint tenure customary management. It may also include co-ownership or leasing. Rights are held in common by larger groups: family, community title patent, group of women, cooperative, couple. Parts of common tenure are generally neither fair nor equal. Because of the plurality of tenure especially in Africa, formal and informal rights coexist. Land reform consider, recognize or not their existence. The trend is the recognition of these informal rights nevertheless there are attempts to formalize in order to meet the interests of security. Experiments in sub-Saharan Africa are different from this point of view: the National Domain of Senegal is strongly criticized, customary land rights are recognized but not formalized in Togo, land laws are enacted in Mali, Burkina Faso and Benin.
Event: Symposium international et formations politiques foncieres et bonne governance
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