Dolphine Caroline Anyango, Programme Director of the Union of Kenya, gives us an account of a session organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the governments of Switzerland and Zambia: "Harnessing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to secure women's rights to land".
 |
“On a Thursday afternoon, the 15th of March 2018, I navigated through the maze of United Nations (UN) Headquarters corridors in New York City. A few wrong turns coupled with vague directions from a security officer finally led me to Conference room 7 in the GA Building. A session had just been concluded as I joined a crowd that had formed outside the venue. As a group got out, “my crowd” of Soroptimists jostled in through the narrow doorway and quickly settled into the available seats which were obviously not enough to go round. Inevitably there were people left standing in the room.
At 1.15pm sharp, Carla Mucavi, Director Liason Office of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN in New York welcomed the participants and speakers to the session, the objective of which was to foster dialogue on advancing and strengthening women’s land rights and to give an overview of the SDG indicator 5.a.2 “Women’s equal rights to land ownership”.
An engaging panel discussion followed opening remarks from high-level speakers. The following key points were raised:
- Land is a key economic resource. Secure control and ownership of land increases women‘s bargaining power within the household and access to a wide variety of economic opportunities.
- Globally, women are significantly disadvantaged in all land rights compared to men.
- Statutory law in most countries is not aligned with the religious and cultural laws, norms and values.
- The 2030 Agenda offers a unique opportunity for advancing women’s land rights.
- Progress can be tracked thanks to the targets and indicators laid out under SDG 5, which recognizes that strengthening women’s ownership and control over land is a way to empower them and contribute towards eradication of hunger and poverty.
|
|
 |
From the discussions, it was clear that deep gender inequalities persist in ownership and control over land across all regions and women’s land rights should be protected by law.
The “asks” for Soroptmists during the CSW62 included:
- implementing land tenure reforms in a gender equitable manner[1];
- investing in the inclusion of women in agriculture[2];
- and ensuring adequate investment in the collection of disaggregated data used to monitor gender equality[3].
These pertinent issues were mentioned during the session by different speakers.
As I moved out of the room at 2.30pm, I quietly mused over gender inequalities that exist in property relations, access to and control of resources such as land. Such inequalities also exist in family relations and negatively affect divorced wives, widows and orphans in succession cases.
Family relations are governed by an overlap of statutory, customary and religious systems of law making gender justice a seemingly grey area. Justice is relational; differential treatment for women and girls to provide them with what they require to attain gender equity should be enshrined in law for a just outcome. Despite recent revisions of constitutions in many countries, gender inequalities in property relations still persist due to systemic barriers.”
[1] SDGs 1, 5 and 16
[2] SDGs 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 10
[3] SDGs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16 and 17