Rural women still struggle for access to land, says Gender Commission report

The Commission for Gender Equality has found women in rural areas in some provinces still face discriminatory and patriarchal challenges that pose huge barriers in gaining access to land.

This is revealed in a report titled, “Exploring Barriers to Women’s Access to Communal Land in Selected Provinces of SA”, released on Thursday. It attributes the barriers to procedural and cost disparities, gender identity and sexual orientation and expression, and age and marital status, among other aspects.

A woman from the Eastern Cape was quoted as saying that to attain a portion of land, she was required to bring a male family member to legitimise her application. She said her livestock had to be registered in her father’s name to have access to grazing land, which led to her father making major decisions about her livestock without her knowledge or consent.

“By default, the livestock belongs to the man of the house ... he once sold my goat without telling me and I had to call the police to fetch it from where he sold it as it was still in a breeding process.”

The report said that in cases where married women can apply for communal land, the permission to occupy or lease is issued in the husband’s name, reflecting the cultural belief that the land belongs to the family, as the family name is based on the husband’s name.

One participant shared that she could not access land independently while married. She was required to bring her husband because she was not born in that area.

Additionally, in some areas, when a husband dies, a wife needs to be accompanied by a male relative from the late husband’s side to the senior traditional leader to request land allocation. This practice may lead to them losing their home.

“In one of the focus groups, a woman mentioned that in her village, to apply for land, women were required to have a child. She pointed out that without a child, women were not granted any land. Without a child to legitimise a woman’s land claim, she had to live with her parents for a longer period, while men were not subjected to the same rules,” read the report.

The commission warned that discussions on race often overshadow the issue of women’s access to communal land in SA.

“Discriminatory rules and patriarchal norms pose significant barriers for women in rural communities. Traditional authorities often restrict women from independently accessing land, with conflicts arising between the application of constitutional democracy and customary laws.

“Despite comprising more than 51% of the population, the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development reported in 2017 that women owned only 13% of farms and agricultural land.

“Traditional leaders have a significant role in land allocation, but the lack of clear laws and national regulations has led to corruption, gender discrimination, and inequitable land allocations. Moreover, disparities in application procedures and costs, cultural expectations, and unfair land pricing have further restricted women’s access to communal land,” it said.

The report concludes that women in rural communities face economic challenges that are worsened by the unnecessary costs of accessing communal land. The financial challenges leave women unable to support themselves, their children and their families, resulting in ongoing disempowerment.

It has called for interventions to align policy and practice for consistency and co-ordination in land allocation processes due to procedural disparities in the allocation of communal land, affected by corruption, gender bias and inequity.

“The legacy of past apartheid laws cannot be ignored, given the regulations that relegated women to the status of minors, subjecting them to the authority of their fathers and husbands in the area of land access and ownership. Even in the present-day democratic era, women continue to struggle with these discriminatory and unjust practices, as access to land for some women is still tied to male relations through marriage and kinship,” reads the report. 

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