Women push for their right to own property

Poverty and lack of education brought her to the city of Accra. Worse, her father forced her into marriage. But in the second year of marriage both her husband and father died, leaving her with a son to bring up alone. To add salt to injury, her in-laws threw her out of the house. She went back to her father’s house only for her brothers to ask her to go back to her husband’s house. With nowhere to go she returned to Accra to seek greener pastures. On arrival she did not have anywhere to go until she luckily met a tribeswoman and joined her at Agbogbloshie, a slum of Accra. “The situation here is so bad that during the rainy season we seldom sleep, we stand the whole night because the entire area gets flooded. As a result there are mosquitoes all over and both adults and children suffer from malaria,” Aisha, (not real name) narrated. This is the story of majority of African women. Even though their rights to land, housing and property are clearly recognized in international, regional and national conventions and constitutions, they are yet to experience the practical benefits of access, ownership and control of land and housing. In our part of the world, there is a clear gap between the theory and practice of these laws because cultural, social, economic hindrances deny women their rights to own landed property. Statistics show that one third of the world’s women are said to be homeless or live in inadequate housing units. While they perform two-thirds of the world’s total working hours, they own less than one percent of the world’s property. Women and children make up eighty percent of the world’s estimated fifty million refugees and internally displaced persons. It is against this background that Women’s Land Link Africa, (WLLA) under the Women Housing Rights Programme, (WHRP) of the Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction, (COHRE) held a workshop in Accra to discuss and recommend solutions to hindrances facing women. WLLA is an innovative project of COHRE, the Huairou Commission, FAO- Southern and Eastern Africa and UN HABITAT meant to support and strengthen women’s struggles for housing and land in Africa. The organizers explained that the theme for the workshop, “Women’s Rights to Land, Housing and Inheritance in Ghana: Theory and Practice,” stems from the fact that women in Ghana are denied their rights to land, housing and inheritance, which is vital to their well being. The two-day workshop was led by community women from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda who have been confronted with violations of these rights and as a result gave their practical experiences on the subject. In a presentation, the Coordinator for COHRE, WHRP and focal point for WLLA, Birte Scholz, explained that a human rights-based approach to housing envisions that everyone everywhere is entitled to adequate housing. She noted that women are endowed with certain rights and entitlements which go beyond mere charity. She quoted Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of him/herself and his/her family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care…” Ms Scholz stated, “Women’s equal rights to own, access and control land, housing and property, including inheritance are specified in international law: declarations, conventions, treaties, resolutions and plans of actions / agenda’s.” Therefore, she said forced evictions are always a violation of human rights. However, she cited customary laws and traditional practices, inheritance violations and corrupt governments as some of the obstacles preventing women from owning landed property. Ms Scholz called for the domestication of human rights instruments and reformation of constitutions, national laws, policies and regulations. Togbe Noagbesenu III, Paramount Chief of Abatey Traditional Area in the Volta Region regretted that some African women out of ignorance and naivety perceive themselves as properties of their male counterparts and emphasized that the rights of women must be brought into focus in every facet of society.