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Traditional marriage practices as determinants of women's land rights: a review of research - Article prepared based on research by Jean-Philippe Platteau[13], Anita Abraham, Frederic Gaspart, and Luc Stevens


Summary

Customary marriage institutions in sub-Saharan Africa have been the subject of much investigation, as has the impact of external cultural change on these institutions. Here, as in other parts of the world, gender is one of the most important determinants of a person's ability to claim rights, opportunities, status and power. To appreciate the complexity of this issue in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, it is important to understand the institutions through which women may gain access to land.

Research conducted in Senegal and Burkina Faso has specifically examined how land provides for women's social and economic security. Field work conducted by Platteau et al. (2000) sought to highlight the role of customary marriage practices in securing livelihoods for women whose land tenure rights are limited. In the face of exogenous change, these researchers wished to ascertain the degree to which transformations in customary institutions impact on women's ability to secure benefits from land access.

Customary institutions include those surrounding marriage (brideprice, choice of marriage partner, polygamy), widowhood (levirate marriage, return to families), divorce and unwed motherhood.

A review of changing attitudes toward these practices, and possible explanations for these changes, is essential to inform strategies for safeguarding women's rights while respecting the importance of cultural tradition. In building sound programmes capable of working towards gender equity, the nature of customary institutions conferring land tenure is of concern not only in terms of livelihood security but from the perspective of ensuring basic human rights for all women and men.

Introduction

Sub-Saharan Africa has emerged from European colonization into a context in which innumerable socio-economic and political forces exert major new pressures. The struggle of women to maintain their cultural identities while obtaining rights and securing livelihoods is proving to be an unprecedented challenge. Rapid democratization, the spread of HIV/AIDS, the development of land markets, and other forces are transforming African traditional cultures. Inevitably, conflicts are arising as to which direction development should take; individuals and organizations advocate everything from overhauling entire systems to maintaining the status quo. The pace of change has consequences for all social groups but especially those already vulnerable in the existing social order, and gender is one of the key determinants of one's social vulnerability or opportunity. Since, with few exceptions, women are more vulnerable socially, economically and politically than men in the current configuration of most sub-Saharan Africa's socio-economic institutions, women's rights are more likely to be negatively impacted by social change, especially in rural areas.

The fundamental importance of land as a productive resource for rural livelihoods is widely recognized. But for rural women and other social groups, the importance of land goes beyond its function as a means of production. In broader terms, land have social and cultural value, and can be indicative of an individual's position in society as well as the security of that position. The management of agricultural households in sub-Saharan Africa has progressively become women's responsibility as men migrate to other regions for better economic opportunities, and as the HIV/AIDS pandemic takes its toll. Land becomes even more important for women to be able to provide a living to her family, especially when the husband and the other male members of the family die; and other opportunities for income are scarce.

This analysis examines how land might be a means of ensuring women's social and economic security in sub-Saharan Africa. It seeks to explain the different ways in which women can benefit from land, specifically as a mechanism of securing livelihoods for women with few other resources. It also explores the institutions, direct and indirect, through which women can gain access to land. Research conducted in two sub-Saharan African countries, Senegal and Burkina Faso, is reviewed to ascertain to what degree women are able to benefit from land in the regions of study. This research was undertaken in light of exogenous changes observed to be impacting on everyday life in Africa, in order to discover whether these may be modifying women's position in society, and through this, their access to land. (Platteau et al. 2000) Finally, strategies are outlined for safeguarding women's rights, while respecting the importance of existing cultural institutions.

Land tenure systems in Senegal and Burkina Faso

Field research has shown that in rural societies with limited non-farm opportunities, unequal distribution of land is the single most important factor explaining the uneven distribution of wealth and social status. Given that women's access to land is almost always more precarious than men's, it is not surprising that women are overrepresented among the most impoverished people in the rural setting. Although access to land alone may not be the only resource necessary to improve women's economic situation and the well-being of their families, in rural areas, it can at least offer the security of providing for basic food needs and a place to build permanent shelter.

Access to land is a complex issue, especially for women in situations where the rights to ownership and inheritance of personal property, even their rights to be treated as self-determining citizen in the eyes of the law, may be limited. The necessity of land for agriculture and the livelihood of rural families means that access is crucial. Land access, encompassing access to natural resources such as soil and water, is governed through land tenure systems legally or customarily defined. Regulations of land tenure govern who can use what resources, either land, water, livestock or trees, and under what conditions. In both Senegal and Burkina Faso, the land tenure system is largely a customary one in which a Chef de Terre, or Land Chief, acts as custodian of community land and distributes it among households as needed. This land is then inherited through family lineage from father to son. In recent decades, a shift to intensive agriculture and private tenure has reduced the powers of the lineage land chief. Yet the practice of collective management of family land is still largely observed. (Platteau et al. 2000)

Rights to land, and the tenure systems that govern those rights, are as diverse as uses of land. Just as multiple land tenure systems can co-exist in close proximity, multiple rights to land can be held by groups or individuals to the same parcel of land. They include rights to access, use, control and benefit from land, with different individuals holding different sized bundles according to their position in the family, gender, religion or socio-economic status. Additional rights include the ability to transfer or inherit land, which in many countries, Senegal and Burkina Faso among them, are not extended to women. Monitoring the fate of this bundle, in the face of economic and cultural transformations, is key to ensuring the security of women's well-being and that of their families. Recent field research in Senegal revealed that only a minority of women were granted rights to use plots received from their husbands or families-inlaw, so for the majority of women, tenure on their husbands' plots was of an indirect nature. Since women's rights to land are indirect, i.e. through their relationships with men, broader forces at work in shaping and modifying land tenure systems in general may affect their livelihoods. (Platteau et al. 2000a)

In rural areas, customary tenure systems arise out of traditional social institutions, such as family and marriage arrangements. These institutions generally ensure that women have access, albeit on a limited basis, to resources under community or corporate control, including rights to a plot of land for household food production. Traditional institutions governing family lineage, marriage and inheritance are hugely influential in customary systems, and often strictly adhered to as a means of preserving social order. In regions where customary systems predominate, gender - in that it largely determines one's status in a family and community - determines one's degree of access and control of resources relative to others in the community. As in many other countries, in Burkina Faso and Senegal, cultural norms often dictate that men are heads of household, which means that they receive land from the Land Chief and determine its uses and benefits.

In both countries Senegal and Burkina Faso, women have rights to use their father's land, and indirect land access can be obtained through marriage. Women's value in these agricultural communities is often based on their ability to perform farm labour, and land access is based upon the perceived value of their labour by potential husbands. (Pander 2000) While some women are granted access to plots of land by their husbands to cultivate as they choose, their rights tend to stop short of control over the land they cultivate. Some women might even consider themselves owners of the land they work, but in customary land tenure systems their land can be taken away from them at any time and by different reasons. In this environment, customary marriage institutions offer some protection. For example, when women in Senegal and Burkina Faso are widowed, the norm is that they marry their deceased husband's brother, often in polygamy, in the institution known as levirate. Levirate is practiced both to protect access a woman has acquired to land through her deceased husband, and to protect her deceased husband's lineage lands from the possible inheritance claims of stepchildren born outside his bloodline. If a woman does not accept levirate, she may return to her family of origin and cultivate her father's land for her own nutrition. But here she will have use rights only, and often must leave her male children behind with her deceased husband's family.

The true vulnerability of a woman's position becomes apparent when important cultural institutions, such as customary marriage practices, begin to decline. Rights to use land, while granting women a means of sustenance for their families and perhaps a limited income, do not provide security for them and their dependants when traditional family structures dissolve through labour mobility, the mass devastation of HIV/AIDS or other transformative events. The marked feminization of households is leading to increased land insecurity for those households, as there has been no corresponding feminization of land rights. Even a married woman is in an extremely vulnerable position; her indirect access to land means she is largely dependent on her husband's ability to manage the assets and income of the family, as well as on her husband's good faith. (Deere and León 2001) Despite these changes to the composition of the community, Land Chiefs persist in restricting control of land to men as traditional heads of household. Men continue to enjoy social recognition as farmers while the stereotype of women as auxiliary helpers, without regard to their skill or to the amount of time they spend working on the farm, is as strong as ever. Field researchers in Senegal have suggested that the erosion of customary mechanisms of social security for women will effect a shift to new institutions for their protection in events such as divorce or widowhood. Before this is achieved, however, they have foreseen a period of growing tension and dispute, where traditional mechanisms may be increasingly questioned. (Platteau et al. 2000a)

In many sub-Saharan African countries, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, land tenure is determined by both statutory and customary laws. In this pluralist legal system, which developed during the period of European colonialization, customary law can be ambiguous and hard to interpret, while modern law can be difficult to enforce because of the tendency to fall back on custom. The very structure of this system allows vacillation between the two systems in resistance to reform, and is cemented by adherence to stereotyped gender roles. (Whitehead and Tsikata 2001) In fact, it has been argued that the development of modern law alongside customary law has eroded safeguards to women's land tenure rights in marriage and divorce, which had been well established before colonization. Religious statutes, such as Islamic Sharia law, have also been applied alongside customary laws in these predominantly Islamic countries. But even this law, which in Senegal and Burkina Faso specifically grants women limited inheritance of land, does little to secure their inheritance rights. In the face of myriad laws and codes, often contradicting one another and evading enforcement by courts, women's de facto rights with regard to land tenure are a far cry from those guaranteed under statutory law.

Forces of change on land tenure systems

Access to land and its associated rights can only be understood by examining the institutions in which those rights are embedded. It is the dynamics of these institutions (socio-cultural institutions, the market and the state), and power relations between them, that determine the operation of land tenure systems. Shifts within these institutions likewise effect change in systems of land tenure. In Africa, both population growth and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are currently transforming social order beyond recognition, and with it the concept of customary land tenure. Communal land is also being privatized as a result of market forces, as commercial markets in land develop and spread under the influence of the international economic policies of the latetwentieth century. Research undertaken in Senegal has found that land tenure is in the process of becoming more individualized, land is evolving into a marketable asset, and agriculture is becoming more intensive as the market gets more competitive, requiring higher levels of investment as a result.

It should be mentioned that the concept of a market for land is not a new one in Africa; markets in land have been a feature of Africa customary tenure systems since the beginning of the colonial period. (Whitehead and Tsikata 2001) However, in the last 25 years a commercial conception of land markets, driven by the macroeconomic policies, has favoured the move to individual tenure as well as the removal of barriers to finance capital - with the subsequent increase of foreign investment in land and agribusiness, the development of new agricultural technologies, and a decrease in public spending on state infrastructure. (Patnaik 2001) In many rural areas, large agribusinesses have gained control of lands formerly held under customary tenure, rendering women's already tenuous grasp on land even less secure. However, individual regions have been very differently affected by land scarcity resulting from these various changes. (Whitehead and Tsikata 2001) Such differences are related to local factors such as colonial history, commercial development of agriculture and degree of urbanization.

In recent years, data has been gathered to examine how women's social protection is actually being affected by changes to customary marriage systems in Senegal and Burkina Faso. Anthropologists in the past had asserted that traditional marriage institutions would alter in a clear-cut manner as agricultural land became scarce, based on the reasoning that women's access to land was purely a function of their value as agricultural labourers. Applying the rules of supply and demand, the theory went that as farmland became less available, women would lose their value to husbands, the practice of polygamy would decline, and brideprices will fall to such an extent as to become obsolete. Instead, a new institution would evolve as fathers began to endow their daughters with dowries as a pre-mortem inheritance in order to restore women's bargaining strength in marriage. In the event of divorce, the dowry would provide some protection as women would find it more difficult to be accepted back on to their family land. (Boserup 1970, Goody 1976)

While recent research findings in Senegal and Burkina Faso do not contradict the possibility of such sweeping changes, they do not indicate that such a massive cultural transformation would take place in so orderly a fashion, suggesting, at best, that a gradual transformative and questioning period might give way to alternative institutions, such as a dowry system. Any such intermediary stage might on the other hand mean that diminishing access to resources previously secured under traditional systems left women completely unprotected. (Platteau et al. 2000a) Land rights might in the process remain stuck in the void between traditional and modern institutions; between de jure rights and de facto control. (Pander 2000)

Traditional marriage institutions and social security

To comprehend relationships between women, their husbands, families, communities and the land, it is essential to shed any culture-bound presumptions about what situations and relationships are most beneficial to women. While customary marriage systems, which may involve payment of a brideprice, polygamy, or levirate marriage, are taboo in Western society, these constitute viable conventions through which women's access to agricultural land is protected in many African countries. Although these systems do not allow explicit control of land, they tend to protect women's livelihoods in the short run and may extend greater independence and control to women than what they might enjoy otherwise, given the current institutional context for land tenure in those countries.

There is no doubt that increasing land scarcity is an issue in sub-Saharan Africa but it is not the more relevant condition under which changes in customary institutions can occur. Senegal and Burkina Faso, in fact, are two sub-Saharan African countries where population density is low and land scarcity still moderate. What has made these countries interesting to study is the recent introduction of intensified, irrigated agriculture. Women's cultivation activities in this environment include weeding, harvesting and transplanting, as well as providing vegetables and condiments for family meals. In both countries, women's participation in agricultural activities has increased in recent years. The presence of irrigation schemes targeting women has also conferred on them some control over small parcels of arable land, which their daughters may inherit. But with that small exception, women's rights to control or inherit land are almost non-existent in Senegal and Burkina Faso, and women's land tenure remains largely dependent upon their relationships with men. In both countries, polygamous and levirate marriage are two of the traditional practices securing women's access to land. Marriages are typically arranged when brides are young, and brideprice is traditionally paid by potential husbands to compensate their wives' parents.

Researchers administered questionnaires and held focus groups in both countries, collecting information from several villages in Senegal and Burkina Faso about customs, personal characteristics, experiences and attitudes to customary marriage systems.

Changes in Senegal

In the Senegal River Valley, the study observed that although community-allocated land is abundant and population low, changes in customary systems are still taking place, with some becoming less prevalent and others appearing to be maintained. Researchers administered questionnaires among sixteen villages in the Senegal River Valley, to 185 women and 85 men of the Wolof and Tourcouleur people. Questionnaires were designed to find out what customary mechanisms of social protection exist, what men and women thought about these mechanisms, and how these institutions are changing, as well as whether any of these changes are limiting women's access to land.

An interesting preliminary finding was that the average age of women at first marriage is rising over time. (Appendix 1, Table 1) In general, age of first marriage tended to be higher with more years of education, when marriage was not arranged between families, and when women belonged to an ethnic group (the Wolof people) that is less strongly attached to custom. Men's average age at first marriage was conversely found to be decreasing over time. Since women in Senegal traditionally marry, when they are relatively young, with older men, a shift in age of first marriage heralds the presence of other changes in customs and attitudes. (Platteau et al. 2000a)

When the custom of arranged marriage was examined, researchers found that the practice of non-arranged or 'love marriage' is becoming increasingly prevalent among the younger generation, although marriages were still arranged for a majority of women. Non-arranged marriages further depart from custom since they typically do not occur between familial relations. Women who choose their own marriage partner are also increasingly claiming the right to choose the number of children they have, a decision traditionally left to husbands. At the same time, the custom of polygamous marriage appears to be on the decline in Senegal. (Appendix 1, Table 5) Polygamy had been an important mechanism through which women have had access to land, as well as the availability of farm labour for men, but its decline was attributed to the fact that, increasingly, women are independently deciding against it. Monogamous marriage has far from eclipsed custom in Senegal but the shift to monogamy is clearly related to the rise in non-arranged marriage, since a greater percentage of women who chose their own husbands (60 percent) entered monogamous marriage than women whose marriages were arranged by families (37 percent).

Researchers found that the custom whereby grooms pay a brideprice to their brides' families is also alive and well, indicating that women have retained value to prospective husbands, even in marriages that are not arranged. In fact brideprice was found to be, on average, higher for women who participate in non-arranged marriage, as well as for women involved in irrigation schemes targeted to them. It appears that targeted irrigation programmes, while bolstering women's direct access to land, also indirectly impact their livelihoods by improving the bargaining capacity of these women more before prospective husbands. Their daughters are also able to inherit rights to land granted under these schemes, which is quite a new phenomenon in Senegal. But while brideprice indicates that women continue to be valued, there is a growing consciousness in Senegal that brideprice amounts can and should be influenced by potential brides to keep them low. (Appendix 1, Table 4) High brideprices are coming to be considered an impediment to the growing number of non-arranged marriages. They are also disliked because, in Senegal, the entire amount must be repaid by a wife if she is deemed responsible for a divorce. Many women participating in the survey believed that high payments placed undue pressure on them to live up to their monetary worth and could make them feel like a commodity. While women's actual bargaining strength in such matters was found to remain quite weak, researchers reported that over time, women are increasingly claiming the importance of their bargaining power in brideprice negotiations. (Platteau et al. 2000a)

Where marriage is women's key means of obtaining rights to land in Senegal, it goes without saying that women's social security becomes vulnerable if the marital bond is broken. However, this rural society provides alternative means for widowed, divorced and unmarried women to regain access to land. When separation or divorce occurs, families frequently take steps toward reconciliation, not out of any scarcity of family land but because they have often forged important social ties to their in-laws. When this fails, most women believe they can return to their family home and rely on their family of origin in all circumstances. In the Senegal River Valley, it was found that the customary system whereby divorced women may reintegrate into their families upon divorce remains in place. But it must be added that divorced women, like unmarried women, are not granted control over a specific plot, and their sons can inherit none of their parents' land. Interestingly, in light of this custom, while non-arranged marriage and monogamous marriage are on the rise in Senegal, the divorce rate seems to have held steady. Less surprising was that women with many children to care for are less likely to divorce.

Widows in Senegal, much like divorced women, were traditionally allowed to return to their parents' home, and receive general rights to use land there. It appears this tradition also continues but given the limited nature of their rights to family land, and the inability for sons to inherit land in their family of origin, tenure is more secure if they enter into levirate marriage. This arrangement also assures the deceased husband's family that any further children borne by his widow, if she is still of childbearing age, will be rightfully entitled to the family lineage land. Although the system of levirate remains - guaranteeing land access for widows, land security for deceased husband's families, and inheritance for sons - negative assessments of levirate, like those of polygamy, are becoming increasingly prevalent among younger women. (Appendix 1, Table 6) Women with some primary education were even more likely to assess levirate negatively, perhaps because educated women have other social security options outside of agriculture.

In the Senegal River Valley, a rural area of low population density where women do not have direct rights to own and inherit land, traditional means for women to attain social security remain largely intact. However, it is interesting to note that changes to traditional institutions are still taking place. While these shifts are to some extent explained by changes in younger women's attitudes toward tradition, accompanied by growing educational opportunity, the vulnerability left when customary systems fade deserves further investigation.

Customs and changes in Burkina Faso

The research in Burkina Faso also investigated the costumary social system of agricultural communities with rural conditions similar to those in Senegal and here, as in Senegal, land scarcity has not reached critical levels. Among the Mossi people of Burkina Faso, as among the people of the Senegal River Valley, small-scale agriculture predominates in a hierarchical and patriarchal social order. As in Senegal, women may gain the rights to use and cultivate land indirectly through fathers or husbands. There appeared to be no fundamental changes underway in systems of marriage, family or inheritance. The researchers administered the same questionnaires used in the Senegal River Valley to 120 women and 120 men in six geographically diverse villages, each of which had irrigated agriculture. In this sample, researchers made a special effort to choose unmarried women, with the help of village administration, so as to gain ample data on their appraisals of customary support systems. As in Senegal the aim was to analyse women's opinions and behaviour with regard to marriage, levirate, brideprice and polygamy. (Platteau et al. 2000b)

Similar changes in attitudes toward tradition, as expressed by the women and men questioned, may herald an actual transformation of customary systems which would call into question traditional means of social security. In contrast to Senegal, the average age of marriage in Burkina Faso does not appear to be rising, although nonarranged marriages are becoming more frequent. A sizable number of Mossi women married at the age of 17, and this appears to be a strong Burkinabe tradition. The influence of non-traditional religions in denouncing early marriage and other customary practices may also be a factor in the strength of this tradition in Burkina Faso. Another difference observed between customs in Senegal and Burkina Faso was that very few Burkinabe women believed they had a stake in influencing brideprice. Putting this apparent lack of bargaining power into context is the fact that brideprice is so low as to be considered a token gift in Burkina Faso; a woman is never required to repay it in the event of divorce.

Monogamy, as in Senegal, appears to be a growing tendency among younger women. In Burkina Faso, this tendency appears to be somewhat culturally determined since Christian churches consider polygamous marriage, as well as levirate, sinful. Another similarity to findings in Senegal is that the divorce rate in Burkina Faso does not appear to be changing over time, and that women are less likely to divorce the more children they have, as supporting children without a husband tend to be not easy. But the cultural practice of granting these unmarried women access and temporary rights to use land in their birth family remains strong among the Mossi people.

Similar again to findings in Senegal, Burkinabe women widowed at a young age tended to enter into levirate while widowed women who avoided levirate tended to be above childbearing age (average age 50), and had children near adulthood. Women in levirate matrimony also tended to be Muslim, while in deference to church teachings only a minority of Christian women entered levirate marriage. In both regions studied, younger women's growing rejection of polygamy and levirate were deemed to be hinting at broad institutional changes on the horizon. (Appendix 2)

In both countries, women continue to play an active role in agriculture, being expected to provide vegetables and condiments for daily meals while men manage the household economy. Traditional practices were not observed to have changed significantly but the decline of customary practices may be lagging behind changes in women's attitudes. Burkinabe culture is particularly influenced by the Christian church's opposition to many local customs. In light of such conflicts between custom and religions doctrine, as well as changing opinions about appropriate social practices in both countries, it seem to exist a transition and questioning period in which secure land tenure may get lost between 'traditional' and 'modern' values. The origins of this transition are still not completely understood and deserve further study. Fortunately, women's land tenure rights were not observed to have conspicuously eroded thus far. (Pander 2000, Platteau et al. 2000a)

One issue clearly verified in the study was that land is more than simply a commodity; and supply and demand economics only allows a narrow insight into customary changes. Instead, it was asserted that nearly all changes taking place could be attributed to rise in "individual-centred values". These were defined as new ideas to which young people in the country are exposed through new education and broader influenced from Western countries, emphasising introspection, personal autonomy, individualism, and free exercise of will. But while it is apparent that education does influence women's opinions about marriage and other social institutions, this influence could equally stem from the fact that educated women have a greater range of non-agricultural livelihood options open to them.

Progressively, it looks as if that these individual-centred values are exerting an incredible influence on society and ultimately replacing customary thinking. Given that social norms and economic policy are elements of the same cultural value system, it is possible to assert that these individual-centred social values, are equally culture-bound and not independent from the supply and demand economics that has emanated from the colonial period.

In relation to land access, it may be more appropriate to consider the values regarding land tenure systems as socially embedded, allowing devolution to individual ownership as dictated by social relations. (Whitehead and Tsikata 2001) Further, as in nearly all societies, households in most traditional African cultures frequently allocate their resources following an uneven distribution within. Although households might appear to the outsider as indivisible entities, control of resources within households is further subdivided and distributed according to productivity, age, education, and especially gender. As with land rights in general, not all family members have a bundle of equal size.

A full understanding of what change in this region will mean for women's land rights requires further detailed investigation. Many economic and social forces of change are coming together at the moment, that without more evidence, it is impossible to draw any distinct line between pressures resulting from external influences and those from traditional cultural practices. It is also imperative to track precise changes in attitudes or behaviours regarding traditional institutions, which are vulnerable to many influences, not least the enormous impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Land rights as human rights

Although it is clear that existing customary practices are largely intact in both countries studied, their precipitate decline demands attention, as does the fact that the security these customary provisions provide is only indirect at best. Rights to use land may be granted to all unmarried and married women, but the dissolution of marriage still effectively terminates women's control of land they cultivate. While Islamic law provides them with limited inheritance rights, these rights are neither acknowledged nor enforced. Changes to customary institutions which control women's tenure rights, are of as much concern as the iniquities of tenure inherent in those institutions, not only because of the ways in which these affect agricultural livelihoods but because women's indispensable human rights are affected. As the UN Economic and Social Council Commission on the status of women unequivocally states, "land rights discrimination is a violation of human rights".

Recognition of this fact has been growing in the international community since the First UN Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975. At that time, a World Plan of Action was approved to secure legislative guarantees of equal rights, including equality in exercising civil, social and political rights relating to marriage. Another recommendation was for legislation to protect men's and women's full legal capacity to acquire, administer, enjoy, dispose of or inherit property. Four years later, at the 1979 UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the focus was on measures to eliminate discrimination against rural women so that women and men could benefit equally from rural development. The Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the advancement of women, approved in 1985, again pointed out how discrimination affects women's ability to inherit, own and control property. The needs of female heads of household were highlighted, and the assumption that households are always headed by men was denounced as discriminatory. Another decade on, at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, women's land rights formed an important component of the strategic objectives, and women's access to and inheritance of land was included on four of the conference's twelve strategic areas of concern. In Beijing, it was stated bluntly that poverty is directly related to women's lack of autonomy and lack of access to educational, economic and natural resources. (Deere and León 2001)

Attaining land rights for women also signifies gains in the struggle against poverty, since poverty is so closely associated with women's unequal access to land. To improve gender inclusive access to land, and the benefits from land, may be one way to overcome economic and social disadvantages, especially in rural areas.

It is widely acknowledged that official statistics often underestimate women's contribution to the economy, especially in agriculture. The fact that women are not considered farmers in their own right, and that they lack other rights such as that over land and other productive resources, means that they are not counted in national censuses and other surveys. As a result, government institutions continue to undervalue women's labour contributions, and this entrenched bias translates into the continued denial of land rights and agricultural services to women.

At the same time, the proportion of women in agriculture has increased in the last ten years - along with the number of women heads of rural households - even while the agricultural labour force as a whole has been declining. Researchers found that the well-being of women and children depends significantly on whether women have direct or indirect access to land, and that women's household headship is associated with improved child welfare. They also reported that where women have direct control of resources or income, the association with children's improved nutrition and survival is stronger than when men have this direct control. In light of these findings, it is crucial that gender equality is incorporated into each country's strategy to eradicate poverty and foster social and economic development.

Final remarks

Gender equity with regard to land rights does not simply imply the protection of modern law, nor does it mean that customary procedures for attaining rights must be maintained at all costs. Changes in customary land tenure systems in Senegal and Burkina Faso are certainly influenced by external events, but in a complex manner. Cultural norms and practices, as well as changes brought by socio-economic forces, have the capacity to limit women's access to and control of land. Strategies designed to work towards gender equity must not underestimate the strength of socio-cultural institutions in determining land tenure.

At the same time, development planners and policy makers must consider the important role that seemingly discriminatory institutions play in protecting women's rights within cultures, even if indirectly. There is a danger that land tenure programmes may generate resistance among their intended beneficiaries if they attempt to modify socio-cultural norms and practices. Programme design needs to include measures that acknowledge and mitigate these socio-economic costs, and would-be participants must not be made to feel that the social and economic risk of participation in the programme is too great.

Further investigation is certainly warranted to determine the degree to which women's land rights are being eroded as customs change in these countries, as well as what can be done to bolster women's access to and control over land for their own and their families' benefit. Specific attention is required in monitoring the impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on women's rights. HIV/AIDS is playing a role in altering traditional institutions in Burkina Faso; (Appendix 2, Table 11) nevertheless, research findings so far do not enable an accurate assessment to be made of the extent to which this is impacting on rural livelihoods, and in particular on land management. Recent phenomena such as that of land-grabbing, the decline of levirate marriage, the massive number of AIDS orphans and the rise in government-granted letters of administration to prevent widows from controlling property, require further investigation within the specific context of HIV/AIDS' impact.

Statutory reforms must be further examined in the context of both Senegal and Burkina Faso's pluralist legal system, as women's rights to land effectively fall into the gap between customary and modern law. It is just as important to train public officials about the extent to which women's access to land benefits entire families, communities and nations, and can ultimately help to improve living conditions of families in rural settings.

But perhaps the major challenge is in encouraging individuals, both women and men, to exercise their existing rights. This requires the building of local capacity to manage legal and social regulations to access, own and use land. It also entails the development of adequate, decentralized, institutional mechanisms for recording land registration and other land-related information.

References

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Patnaik, U. 2001. Global capitalism and its impact on the agrarian transition in developing countries. Geneva, UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development). (Working Document)

Platteau, J., Abraham, A., Brasselle, A., Gaspart, F., Niang, A., Sawadogo, J. & Stevens, L. 2000. Marriage system, access to land, and social protection for women, Part One: The case of Senegal. Namur University, Belgium, Centre de Recherche en Economie du Développment.

Platteau, J., Abraham, A., Brasselle, A., Gaspart, F., Niang, A., Sawadogo, J. & Stevens, L. 2000. Marriage system, access to land, and social protection for women, Part Two: The case of Burkina Faso. Namur University, Belgium, Centre de Recherche en Economie du Développment.

Whitehead, A. & Tsikata, D. 2001. Policy discourses on women's land rights in sub- Saharan Africa. Geneva, UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development). (Working Document)

Appendix 1. Data from Senegal questionnaires

(Platteau et al. 2000)

Table 1
Average age at first marriage depending on present age of sample women

Categories of women according to present age

Average age at first marriage (years)

Frequency

16 - 30 years old

17.2

67

31 - 40 years old

16.8

56

> 40 years old

15.0

59

All Categories

16.4

182

Table 2
Average age at first marriage depending on present age of sample men

Categories of men according to present age

Average age at first marriage (years)

Frequency

22 - 34 years old

21.7

18

35 - 40 years old

21.5

19

41 - 55 years old

23.8

15

56 - 77 years old

28.0

15

All Categories

23.5

67

Table 3
Shortcomings of high brideprices as mentioned by sample women

High brideprices (BPs) ...

Number of women mentioning this problem (%)

... alienate women

55.4

... constitute an obstacle to divorce because they are difficult to pay back

18.1

... may prevent a man from marrying a woman he loves

8.4

... cause a waste of money or the indebtedness of the husband

12.0

... make relationships between two families difficult

3.6

... violate an Islamic tenet

2.4

... other effects

15.7

Percentage of women who do not see any problem with high BPs

40.3

Table 4
Shortcomings of high brideprices as mentioned by sample men

High brideprices (BPs) ...

Number of men mentioning this problem (%)

... make marriages difficult

14.3

... drive husbands to ill-treat their wife

4.8

... cause a waste of money or financial problems for the husband

57.1

... alienate women

12.7

... affect divorces

7.9

... violate an Islamic tenet

1.6

... other effects

1.6

Percentage of men who do not see any problem with high BPs

24.1

Table 5
Opinions of sample women about polygamy

A. Reasons behind a positive assessment of polygamy

Polygamy is advisable because it ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... is prescribed by Islamic religion

11.5

... gives women a lot of freedom and autonomy

36.5

... encourages solidarity and mutual help among women

41.7

... allows all women to be married

5.2

... enlarges the family

2.1

Other reasons

5.2

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

B. Reasons behind a negative assessment of polygamy

Polygamy is subject to criticism because it ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... fosters rivalry and jealousy

60.6

... enables the man to have more time available for wife and children

9.9

... prevents the husband from taking good care of his wives, materially

19.7

Other reasons

9.9

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

Table 6
Opinions of sample women about the levirate system

Opinions

Frequency

Levirate is good

109

Levirate is bad

64

Levirate is good conditionally*

6

No opinion

1

Total

180

* These women think that levirate system can be good if the woman is rather old (one opinion), if the woman accepts it (two opinions), or if the relationship between husband and wife is good (three opinions).

Appendix 2. Data from Burkina Faso questionnaires

(Platteau. et al. 2000)

Table 7
Frequency distribution of age at first marriage and freedom of choice of marriage partners


Arranged marriage

Love marriage

Total

Age at marriage

45

14

59

Age at marriage

27

25

52

Total

72

39

111

Table 8
Frequency distribution of gifts payment under different categories by regions

Category 0 absence of any gift payment at marriage
Category 1 if the value of the payment is = 1 000 CFA
Category 2 if 1 000 < the value of the payment = 2 500 CFA
Category 3 if 2 500 < the value of the payment = 10 000 CFA
Category 4 if the value of the payment is =10 000 CFA
Category 5 if the payment has an exceptionally high value


Yatenga

Kadiogo

Sissili

Sammatenga

Total

%

Category 0

4

2

6

2

14

10.6

Category 1

2

16

3

8

29

22.0

Category 2

8

6

4

5

23

17.4

Category 3

13

4

5

9

31

23.5

Category 4

16

8

3

1

28

21.2

Category 5

3

1

3

0

7

5.3

Total

46

37

24

25

132

100.0

Table 9
Opinions of sample women about polygamy

A. Reasons behind a positive assessment of polygamy

Polygamy is preferable to monogamy because it ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... encourages solidarity and mutual help among women

92.5

... allows greater production thanks to more abundant labour

9.4

... gives women a lot of freedom and autonomy

3.8

Other reasons

1.9

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

B. Reasons behind a negative assessment of polygamy

Monogamy is preferable to polygamy because ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... it is easier for a man to maintain a small family

76.8

... there is less rivalry and jealousy

37.5

Other reasons

5.5

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

Table 10
Opinions of sample men about polygamy

A. Reasons behind a positive assessment of polygamy

Polygamy is preferable because ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... there is solidarity among the co-wives

83

... there is more labour available

21.3

Other reasons

8.5

* Since several men mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

B. Reasons behind a positive assessment of monogamy

Monogamy is preferable because ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... there is less rivalry in the family

48.4

... it is less expensive

64.5

... land is becoming less abundant

11.3

Other reasons

11.3

* Since several men mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

Table 11
Opinions of sample women about the levirate system

A. Reasons for supporting the levirate system

Levirate is a good practice because ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... it prevents the dispersal of children

10.6

... it permits a mother to stay with her children

40.9

... the psychological and material support of the widow and children is better ensured

60.6

Other reasons

18.2

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

B. Reasons for rejecting the levirate system

Levirate is not a good practice because ...

Relative frequency (%)*

... the brother of the deceased husband does not take good care of the widow

45.5

... there are feelings of physical repulsion

20.6

... there is absence of love

13.6

... it gives rise to jealousy and quarrels

9.1

... it promotes the spread of HIV/AIDS

6.8

Other reasons

9.1

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent

Table 12
Opinions of women with regard to high marriage payments

A high marriage payment...

Frequency (%)

... makes a woman feel like a commodity

6.3

... is a waste of money if the marriage ends up in divorce

7.26

... makes the one who pays poorer

5.4

... is a way of putting pressure on women's behaviour

3.6

... can lead to a refusal of marriage propositions

2.7

Other reasons

9.0

Has no disadvantages

70.3

* Since several women mentioned two reasons, the total exceeds 100 percent


[13] CRED (Centre de Recherche en Economie du Développement), University of Namur, Belgium

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