The daughters of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, face a vexing decision: Marriage or inheritance?

In 2006, when the state first recognized the rights of unmarried daughters to inherit family land, it simultaneously left millions of women with a dilemma. While ostensibly a step toward gender equality, the new law excluded married daughters, meaning that women who married would face the prospect of weakening or losing their rights to inherit land in their birth family. Daughters of the state were effectively left to choose between marriage and land ownership.

This story was submitted as part of the Land Portal Data Stories Contest and was the recipient of the second prize.

The artisanal mining sector in West and Central Africa is a rapidly expanding economic force employing millions of young people, often those who are the most vulnerable. Numerous ancillary informal economies are associated with the export of what are commonly known as “conflict minerals” such as diamonds, gold and coltan. Women grow crops and process food for the labor force of young men digging deep into the ground to pull out the ore and precious metals and stones.

For hundreds of years, pastoralists in Ethiopia’s lowlands have relied on strong customary land tenure systems to survive. Historically, legislation has failed to clearly define communal rights to rangelands, and the specific roles and responsibilities for both communities and local government to administer and manage these resources. This legislative deficiency prevented pastoral communities from fully exercising their constitutional rights to land (Ethiopia’s Constitution broadly recognizes pastoral communities’ right to access land and prevents their involuntary displacement).

Five weeks ago ‘A land rights storm brewing in Barbuda’ was reprinted on this portal. This told the sorry tale of the Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda using the catastrophic damage wrecked on the island by Hurricane Irma as the excuse to get rid of the collective ownership of Barbudans of their island once and for all.

• Keynote speaker: Professor Hanoch Dagan (Tel-Aviv University):
  • Professor Dagan dedicated keynote address to Professor Dr.

By Matt Kandel, a Newton International Fellow in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS.