Strategies for Gender Equality and Effectiveness in the Field
For more information, contact Nasserie Carew
Women and Property Rights
By Katie Stein, Program Coordinator, Millennium Villages/Access Project Rwanda, and David Kampf, journalist
Although extreme poverty, infectious diseases and gross human rights violations deservedly garner international exposure and attention, the simple notion of owning property is essential in the struggle to reduce poverty, relieve hunger, decrease inequalities and end injustice. The issue is not terribly sexy, but its value is unavoidable. Protected and defined property rights provide people with the security and ability to spur their own economic growth; the importance is even more acute for women.
In developing countries, individual property and land rights are often inadequately established or nonexistent as governments retain long-term ownership of land. Property rights, however, are critical for poverty alleviation. People who enjoy these rights not only have greater incentive to invest in land improvements, but also have greater access to financial assistance.
Defended property rights allow people to look beyond day-to-day survival towards long-term goals. When ownership is ensured, people are more likely to improve their assets for the future. It is a new mindset that someone without property does not have the luxury to enjoy.
Property can be used as collateral for receiving loans. Land gives a person leverage to establish credit and slowly build up the capital necessary to establish a successful business, pay school fees or benefit from greater access to healthcare and food.
Informal ownership, on the other hand, negates a person’s ability to utilize his or her property to improve economic standing.
This argument closely revolves around the reasons for and benefits of microfinance. Even before and especially after Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for their financial work in Bangladesh, microfinance has been the trend of international development (and understandably so). Property rights reinforce the microfinance goals of giving the poor access to financial services and stimulating economic growth from the ground up.
The significance of all of this is magnified for women.
Women and children are often relegated to the sidelines of society, culture, politics and economics - discussed, but not truly involved. A woman’s lack of power in society diminishes her influence over her life and her children’s. Historically and currently, women are marginalized and vulnerable and often rely on a man’s authorization to access land.
Even when property rights are protected, women often suffer from an unequal ability to obtain and enforce them. The exchange of property is largely patriarchal and therefore women depend on husbands and fathers to gain or maintain rights. Men’s names are more frequently seen on legal documents and a woman must seek a man’s approval to make changes. This exacerbates women’s subservient role in society and gives men greater control.
The importance of property rights goes beyond economic factors for women. Of additional significance, women’s property rights also alter social factors.
Property rights are empowering.
A woman is more likely to stay in an abusive relationship if leaving means losing all of her property and wealth. Numerous studies have shown the clear connection between women’s property rights and gender based violence. A lack of ownership forces women into damaging and preventable situations.
Women lacking control over property and household decisions are less able to seek, acquire and use methods that limit the spread of HIV/AIDS and moderate its effects. Cultural and legal barriers to equal rights have therefore been argued to increase the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The International Center for Research on Women points to a correlation between property rights and the incidence of HIV/AIDS in vulnerable women.
The effects of negligible women’s rights transcend their own lives. The exploitation of and discrimination against women greatly impacts their children. UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children 2007 noted the inextricable link between women’s rights and children’s well-being. The crux of the report is that “the amount of influence women have over the decisions in the household has been shown to positively impact the nutrition, healthcare and education of their children.”
Laws are simply not enough. The question often becomes not if there are gender-equal laws for owning and inheriting property, but whether the laws are enforced. Entrenched social norms often prevent women from inheriting or controlling land.
There is insufficient hard data (although great amounts of anecdotal evidence exist) measuring women’s dearth of property and land rights. Still, studies have indicated that biased attitudes and/or discriminatory laws have impacted women’s property rights in places including but not limited to Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Rwanda and Tanzania. In 2003, Nadia Steinzor from the United States Agency for International Development referenced a United Nations estimate that stated women only own one to two percent of titled land around the world despite their involvement in the formal and informal economy.
Property rights are often ignored in law or practice and disproportionately impact women. While men greatly benefit from formal property rights, women’s ownership of property and land have even further-reaching ramifications. Women who own property have greater authority over economic, familial and personal decisions that improve the health, education and economic position of the family. Equal property rights improve equality by empowering women.
