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Malawi |
WOMEN
Women account
for more than 50% of the world’s population, perform two-thirds of all work,
but receive one-tenth of the world’s income and own less than 1% of the
world’s resources
The majority of southern African women are engaged in agricultural activities in rural areas, yet they do not own the land they work on, neither do they control income derived from the same.
Over 70% of all rural households have women as breadwinners. Women are responsible for all food production and preparation. Some of their tasks in the home include hoeing, weeding, and fishing. This work is not taken into account in the nation’s economies, and most women are described as being «economically inactive», when it comes to calculating a nation’s Gross Domestic Product. The fact that women are bearers and nurturers of children, is never taken into account, either.
Heavy work, little control
While women do most work, they control little of a country’s resources. In Malawi for instance, women constitute 52% of the country’s 10 million people; 85% of the country’s female population work in agriculture which forms the basis of the country’s economy.
Civil Liberties Committee (CILIC) Executive Director, Emmie Chanika, says that in Malawi, women have problems over land ownership, because in a traditional setting, once a woman is married she comes under her husband’s total control. «Malawian men fail to understand that even though a man may be the head of the family, this does not give him a licence to seize his wife’s property, including any land she might own. Chanika adds that when her organisation is informed about cases of land grabbing by relatives of a husband who has just died, the CILIC advises the woman to go to Court or to the District Commissioner, who will assist her when it is discovered that the land-title belongs to her. The CILIC will also help her with the necessary paperwork. «This helps to legalise the ownership. But we refer complex cases to the High Court, who may prosecute those who have seized a complainant’s land».
A typical example of the above is as follows: Grace Fundi is a widow, resident in Ndanga Village in Mulanje District. She says that being the only child in her family, when her parents passed away in the 1960s, she inherited all the land that belonged to them. Problems with ownership began when she got married in 1970. Her husband took control of all her land. She says: «I almost lost what remained of my land, as my late husband had already sold some of it, and even had allocated some to his relatives who came to settle in our village. Every time I complained about it, he used to say that as head of our family, he controlled our property. When I persisted in defending my rights, he started talking about divorcing me. When he died, his relatives wanted to grab the land from me. However, our village headman intervened on my behalf. I’m not aware of the existence of any laws which protect our rights on land issues; certainly, nobody, including our village headman is conversant with such laws, if they exist».
The dowry
In northern Malawi, a dowry is paid before marriage and women have little say about land ownership, as land is regarded as the husband’s property so long as he is alive. If the husband dies, it’s not the wife who will inherit the land, but the brothers of the deceased husband.
In a family where a husband has passed away, leaving a wife, sons and daughters, it is not the wife nor the daughters who inherit the land, but the sons.
A University of Malawi social researcher, Paul Kakhongwe, observes that it is quite evident that a number of women for whom a dowry (lobola) has been paid, are ill-treated in many aspects. Lobola is one of the causes of the low status that a woman occupies in her marital home. The inferiority problem that arises from lobola, becomes interwoven with other factors that contribute to a women’s subordinate position in the family, including matters of land ownership. «The other problem is, that customary law does not give women the direct right to inherit their deceased spouses’ estate. As a result women are often victims of property grabbing by relatives of the deceased. It’s a pity that although Malawi is a modern state, supposedly founded on liberal democracy and equal rights for all citizens, the political-legal orientation is still heavily grounded in a patriarchal system of inheritance».
The silence of the Law
Ofwa Kalolokesya, a legal practitioner working for the Centre for Advice, Research, Education and Rehabilitation (CARER) says that though the Land Act gives equal opportunities for men and women to acquire land, the trend is quite otherwise. CARER plays a mediating role in land grabbing issues, especially after the death of the husband. There is a need for government to step up a sound and comprehensive land reform that will give women an equal opportunity to possess land.
The Government has said it will come up with a new land reform policy to address imbalances in land distribution and ownership, especially in highly populated districts. But the feeling still is that even though the Malawi Constitution specifically provides for equal rights for women, in practice, the capacity of government institutions to assure equal rights for all citizens, is limited.
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