Yirgu Bayu, T. (2015) ‘Socio-cultural and Policy Related Constraints to Women’s Land Right: A Case Study from Gamo Highland, SW Ethiopia’, Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(4), p. 249
According to the author, land is the most important resource to women’s living conditions, economic empowerment and ensuring equity/equality. Regardless of this fact, women’s access and control over the land is limited due to various economic, legal, social and cultural factors. Moreover, in the rural areas women are discriminated against when it comes to access to key productive assets and services including land, labour, financial services, water, rural infrastructure, technology, and other inputs. The tenure system in Ethiopia is highly correlated with cultural and traditional practices. The patriarchal social structure affects gender equality in access to the land whereby a patrilineal system of residency operates against women from controlling the land. The author also indicated non-applicability of the existing policy and legal documents regardless of the existence of which women were excluded from land holding and ownership rights.
The author used survey research design for data collection and analysis. Data collected from both primary and secondary sources through the applicability of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Study participants were selected through two stage sampling. In the first stage, purposive sampling was used to select study Kebeles, whereas in the second stage household heads sample was determined by using the formula after Lewis., and accordingly 164 households were selected and participated in the study.
According to the findings of this study, gender equality in access to and control over the land is affected by various constraints and the following are the most outstanding in the study area. The first one is socio-cultural challenges. Although the 1995 FDRE constitution under article 35/4 forbids regulations and customary practices that discriminate against land use rights of women, in practice women are subjected to discrimination. This is because of their economic dependence, low level education and social status and above all socio-cultural and institutional constraints. Thus gender roles are basically determined by patriarchal orientation that affects women’s constitutional guarantee and their ability to participate in social affairs. Even when a woman get access to the land, this was reflected by smaller plots of land allocation. This was evidenced practically where it was clearly revealed from the survey finding that in the study area female headed households on an average owned 0.52 ha farmland as compared to 0.86 ha for the male counterparts. As stated in Kumar and Quisumbing (2010) the national household farm size for female and male was 1.7 ha and 2.2 ha respectively. Regarding acquisition of rural land, it was made evident that succession and inheritance are patrilineal that was determined through male line that exclude girls from inheriting their family whereas, only sons inherit. Moreover, discriminatory application of the law during inheritance and partition of property due to divorce by village elders is noted in the study area. Polygamous marriage is also found to be one of the factors that undermine women’s access to and control over the land. This is because, when men with larger and fragmented farms prefer to marry more than one wife, the available land is going to be distributed among the wives and this in turn reduces productivity and uncertainty towards women entitlement.
Generally, the author recommended that, in order to positively address women’s land right constraints, empowering women in varying land related rights and equitable representation of women in rural land administration councils need urgent attention.