Land Rights and Women
Several scholars argue that women’s lack of sufficient land rights negatively affects their immediate families and the larger community, as well. With land ownership, women can develop an income and allocate this income more fairly within the household. Tim Hanstad claims that providing sufficient land rights for women is beneficial because:
- Women are less likely to contract and spread HIV/AIDS as they do not have to resort to prostitution
- Women are less likely to be victims of Domestic violence
- Children are more likely to get an education and stay in school longer
- Women may have better access to Microcredit
In many parts of the world, women have access to land in order to farm and cultivate the land; however, there are traditions and cultural norms which bar women from inheriting or purchasing land. This puts women in a place of dependence on their husbands, brothers, or fathers for their livelihood and shelter. Should there be an illness, domestic violence, or death in the family, women would be left landless and unable to either grow crops for food, or rent land for profit. Land ownership for women is a crucial form of security and income, increasing Empowerment and decreasing Poverty.
Read more about this topic: Land Law
Famous quotes containing the words land, rights and/or women:
“If a man own land, the land owns him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-hearted attempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)