Women's Inheritance and Property Rights

WRRC work on women’s inheritance and property rights focused on strategies to counter the disempowering uses of ‘culture’ (including religion,  beliefs, customs and traditions) in three key areas:

  1. Women’s right to inherit land and other forms of property
  2. Women’s right to meher (bridewealth), as provided for in Muslim marriages
  3. Women’s access to land under the control of the State or customary authorities

A Working Group carried out the work and supported strategies of eight partners in seven countries:

4 results
22/8/2011

Semarak Cerlang Nusa had three projects under the Women's Inheritance and Property Rights working group:

19/8/2011

This project was implemented by RADI to address discrimination suffered by Senagalese women in relation to inheritance and land ownership. Although women’s equal right to inheritance is recognized in the Constitution, certain interpretations of Muslim laws and customary laws continue to discriminate against women in Senegal.  The project was undertaken in the Senegal River Valley, using three strategies: (a) social mobilization, (b) capacity building, and (c) advocacy with decision-makers.

16/8/2011

This project was implemented by Women Workers Help Line (WWHL), an organisation that has been working in Pakistan to promote women’s social, political and economic rights, including campaigns for the repeal of all discriminatory laws against women. In this project, WWHL provided capacity building, leadership training and knowledge dissemination for women peasants, for whom land rights are closely linked to issues of food sovereignty. A charter of demand for women’s rights to land and property was drawn up after consultations with different stakeholders, social movements and NGOs.

18/5/2011

This project was implemented by Human Angle, an organisation that has been working in Nigeria to protect the right of widows to inherit their deceased husbands’ estate, without being dispossessed by their in-laws. Human Angle uses the following ways to achieve this aim: