* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

There is good news – people are beginning to recognize how critical it is that women have secure rights to land. Studies indicate that when women have secure rights to land, their families benefit from improved nutrition, children’s educational achievement increases, adolescent girls may be less vulnerable to early marriage, and women’s status within the household and the community improves. So what hinders progress? What are the barriers women face in obtaining or asserting their land rights which can bring about such powerfully positive impacts? The primary hurdles are legal, cultural, physical, and psychological.

While most countries now have gender-neutral property rights laws, there still exist laws that directly discriminate based upon gender and marital status. In Nepal, for example, women may inherit tenancy rights from their parents, but these cannot be exercised until the age of 35 and further, they must remain unmarried. There are no such qualifications for Nepalese men (SIGI 2010). More commonly problematic are statutory laws with technical flaws and loopholes that are facially gender-neutral, but have a discriminatory impact on women. Frequently, these laws fail to adequately account for customary land tenure practices which may systemically favor men. For example, in Burkina Faso, laws which limit marital property rights to couples that are formally married under civil law provide no legal protection for the land rights of many women who marry under traditional custom.

In recent decades, many countries have amended their constitutions to abolish discrimination against women in property transactions, Kenya is one example. The new constitution ratified in August 2010 includes major improvements for women’s land rights, but there is much work left to be done before Kenyan women can benefit. Rural Kenyan women who would assert their rights often do not have easy access to a state authority that could enforce statutory laws. A tribal chief may be appointed by the state to adjudicate land disputes, but often this is a male who is under great pressure by his fellow tribesmen to keep the status quo in order to maintain his own position of security. In some cases it’s only the head of household, a man, who can bring grievances to the state appointed tribal authority who decides whether or not a claim has merit. In a 2008 Justice for the Poor report, “The Illusion of Inclusion,” (Ayuko and Chopra) it was reported that when Kenyan women won a court case at the local level, the men insisted that customary law take precedence instead.

Customary law governs much of the land in developing nations and varies widely. Some cultures are matrilineal or have other mechanisms to provide economic safety nets for women, children, and widows. However, some customary practices present a special set of challenges to women; among these are patrilineal systems that treat women as property, traditional safety nets that have become distorted through abuse of dowry and/or bride price requirements, and the view that women are transients and therefore cannot own land. Where the aim is to first do no harm, the value of understanding a community’s customary laws cannot be overstated.

In Kenya, many women fear retribution from their communities because asserting their land rights can bring threats and physical abuse (Harrington and Chopra, 2010). Most police officers and community power holders are male and a woman reporting abuse will often be blamed herself. In a study of Dalit communities, “Dalit Women Speak Out – Violence against Dalit Women in India,” (Irudayam, Mangubhai, and Lee, 2006), economic resources are cited as one of the primary causes of physical violence against women, as they assert their rights to land and to partake in government relief schemes. In communities where no social or economic penalties are applied to abusers, violence is often used to discourage women from asserting their human rights.

In a world where land can mean the difference between sustenance and hunger; between abuse and liberty; between stability and conflict -- land rights are indeed human rights. Statutory laws are a good step towards justice, but unless the relevant customary practices are understood and acknowledged in the making of those laws, they’ll not be socially enforceable.

Behaviors that reinforce ideas of women’s inferiority often become ingrained in women and girls so that they grow up to believe they deserve fewer rights than men and boys. Women participate in cultural traditions that perpetuate this way of thinking for their own daughters, and the cycle continues. Similarly, as they grow up, boys internalize attitudes of discrimination which they observe directed at the girls and women in their communities. Discriminatory behaviors can be both subtle and overt and are found worldwide. For example, during a formal grievance procedure in Kenya, a Sambura woman holds a grass reed over her head while seated on the ground and a man stands holding a long rod which is a symbol of respect. In some parts of rural India it’s not uncommon for girls to be given less food than boys. Such girls are often regarded as objects of property that will someday belong to another family. Sharing resources such as food and water with these girls is sometimes referred to as “watering someone else’s garden,” and is sometimes seen as a waste of a family’s limited resources.

Of the barriers women face in holding land rights, it is perhaps the psychological barriers that will be the most daunting, the most important, and may take the most time to overcome. For this reason it’s essential to include boys as well as girls in efforts toward gender-neutral land and property rights; rights not only in word, but legitimized by their own communities to become rights in deed.

Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights

An initiative of Landesa, the Center for Women’s Land Rights champions the untapped potential of women and girls to transform their communities. With secure rights to land, women and girls can improve food security, education, health, and economic development for themselves and their families.