Analyses inheritance laws and their impacts on rural women in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Senegal, Togo and Mali. Focuses on Muslim societies, but also looks at how these differed from or influenced the inheritance practices of non-Muslim groups. Shows that women continue to be systematically denied their rights to inheritance, especially in rural areas.

Includes evolution of communal areas in Zimbabwe, research context and findings, processes leading to matongo, vulnerability of women’s land access, bargaining for land in patrimonial governance systems.

Includes background, tenure arrangements, women and land tenure, customary marriages, the land issue after apartheid, criticisms of the legislation, the relationship of land legislation to customary law, recommendations.

Contains review of women’s access to land, research overview of women’s land tenure status in East Africa, harnessing women’s agency to secure women’s access to land, the role of intermediary institutions in increasing women’s land tenure security.

Series of country papers on HIV/AIDS and land in Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, with concluding paper on methodological and conceptual issues. The key questions addressed include: The impact on and changes in land tenure systems (including patterns of ownership, access, and rights) as a consequence of HIV/AIDS with a focus on vulnerable groups. The ways that HIV/AIDS affected households are coping in terms of land use, management and access, e.g. abandoning land due to fear of losing land, renting out due to inability to utilise land, distress sale of land, etc.

Includes customary law in South Sudan, statutory land law, customary land tenure, interface of customary and statutory systems, women’s land rights, access to land for returnees, land disputes, land grabbing and other challenges, recommendations.

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations.

Includes sources of differentiation among women – type of land, age, life course, marital status, termination of marriage, economic status, AIDS; policy implications.

There are gender-differentiated impacts when land is harnessed for commercial investment. Land policy needs to address the gendered nature of power relations within families and land tenure systems, and the implications of rural social relations on processes of community consultation, land management and dispute settlement. Without this, land investment policies will not reach their goals of tenure security for all, agricultural productivity and increased revenue.

Contains background to the Acts; the Land Act – concentration of powers in the Ministry, the provisions for a market in land, women’s rights to land, conflict resolution; the Village Land Act – definition and registration of village land, registration and adjudication of customary rights, women’s rights, conflict resolution, the enabling legislation; if not this, then what?; what next?

To better understand the role of tenure security in protecting against, and mitigating the effects of, HIV and violence, this book explores these linkages in Amajuba, South Africa and Iganga, Uganda. Results from the qualitative study revealed that property ownership, while not easily linked to women’s ability to prevent HIV infection, can nonetheless mitigate the impact of AIDS, and enhance a woman’s ability to leave a violent situation.

A discussion paper attempting to take stock of what works and does not work in interventions seeking to promote and enhance women’s land rights. Looks at both individual and community land tenure, rural and urban land, arable and forest land. Describes a variety of interventions in as much detail as possible to understand why the intervention worked or not. Makes recommendations for scaling up women’s land rights.