Women and land in Africa: culture, religion and realising women’s rights

This book brings together ongoing research into rural African women and land rights, with the aim of contributing towards gender equity and the economic independence and human rights of African women. It looks at a number of countries: from West and East Africa and the Horn; Islamic and non-Islamic. The contributors examine women‘s land rights in theory and practice in each country, highlight the key issues and make recommendations. Important commonalities emerge, including the dualism between customary and religious land law, and statute law; the gap between women‘s rights in theory and practice, and the superior rights, power and control of men over land, decision-making, and household income. The situation is not static, and the contributors argue that what is needed are new customary and religious interpretations which recognise that today‘s communities are both urban and rural, multi-ethnic and pluralistic, and that women‘s equal status and full enjoyment of rights are things to be welcomed and enshrined in customary, religious and statutory law.