‘Give rural women access to land’: experts

Experts reiterate that there is a lack of collective agency among social actors responsible for allocating, defending and claiming women’s land rights under formal and customary institutions.

In a report released on Thursday by the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), it was revealed that women in rural areas in some provinces still face discriminatory and patriarchal challenges that pose significant barriers to gaining access to land.

Titled 'Exploring barriers to women’s access to communal land in selected provinces of SA', it attributed the impediment to procedural and cost disparities, gender identity and sexual orientation and expression, and age and marital status, among other aspects.

Dr Phillan Zamchiya, senior researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape said the lack of access to land leads to a loss of household food self-sufficiency as rural women produce most of their food.

“This also interrupts the regular inflow of financial income, as female farmers can no longer produce enough to sell. The loss of financial income has an adverse effect on children’s education and the health of families. Land is not just about agricultural productivity and farm hardware but it is also about improving the human condition. 

“Women also suffer from psychological trauma due to tenure uncertainty. It is also sad that there is a rise in gender-based violence, intimate-partner violence (IPV) and sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (SEAH) related to access, ownership and control over land and natural resources,” Zamchiya said.

He echoed the report’s findings that marriages, power relations and decision-making over land continue to favour men, entrenched by patriarchy.

“From my observation, the biggest losers are single women without children, who are mainly only allowed to gain access to land through their families, especially male members of a household, such as a father or an uncle. Young women in general are excluded from land ownership. From our survey, only 3.95% of our respondents who acquired land in the past 10 years were aged between 18 and 35 years.

“Notwithstanding the above challenges, traditional systems demonstrated the adaptability of living customary law through accommodating and allocating independent residential sites to the growing number of single women with children above 25 years. However, there is still lack of clarity about the real rights of these landholders,” he said.

A woman from the Eastern Cape was quoted as saying that to attain a portion, she was required to bring a male family member to legitimise her application. Her livestock had to be registered in her father’s name to have access to grazing land, which led to her father making major decisions about her livestock without her knowledge or consent, she said.

“By default, the livestock belongs to the man of the house ... he once sold my goat without telling me and I had to call the police to fetch it from where he sold it as it was still in a breeding process.”

The report said that in cases where married women can apply for communal land, the permission to occupy or lease is issued in the husband’s name, reflecting the cultural belief that the land belongs to the family, as the family name is based on the husband’s name.

One participant shared that she could not access land independently while married. She was required to bring her husband because she was not born in that area.

Additionally, in some areas, when a husband dies, a wife needs to be accompanied by a male relative from the late husband’s side to the senior traditional leader to request land allocation. Not following this practice may lead to them losing their home.

“In one of the focus groups, a woman mentioned that in her village, to apply for land, women were required to have a child. She pointed out that without a child, women were not granted any land. Without a child to legitimise a woman’s land claim, she had to live with her parents for a longer period, while men were not subjected to the same rules,” read the report.

The CGE warned that discussions on race often overshadow the issue of women’s access to communal land in South Africa.

Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of SA (Agbiz) said they have been advocating for a more inclusive criteria for women, especially in land reform cases.

“That [practically] at least 50% of the land should be under women’s ownership. The historical dimensions of land have made it difficult for them to be holders.

“The hope is that legislation will lead to better share. There is a need to address the gender imbalance, we need to be intentional about it,” Sihlobo said.