Human Rights of Women
MARIAM Peter, is a mother of 4, with the sixth on the way. She has had an interesting story with her last 2 pregnancies.
It was in 2010, at a time she worried about how she would fight a court battle over her house. Her husband had auctioned the house in mid 2000, to pay off debts he had accumulated-and spent away from family. He was doing it with out the wife's consent, yet , ironically, the wife had spent her hard earned cash years earlier to build the house.
Her story is not unique. Many women in Morogoro Region have been kept in poverty in rural areas by their husbands who were using culture to keep women away from owning property or land.
According to Fatuma Masoyi, the Director for Morogoro Paralegal Centre (MPLC), the situation was worse for poor women who lacked the economic muscle to fight for land ownership against a backdrop of gender-insensitive customary laws that continued to sideline them.
"We carried out surveys in Mvomero District in 2006 where land conflicts were more significant. The findings indicated that culture and mindset was a huge impediment to women's quest to own property,"she said.
At the time, a research done in wards in Hembeli, Diongoya, Mlali, Doma, Kanga and Mzumbe(all in Morogoro Region) showed that there were less women owning land.
Some 90 per cent of the disputes in the district were all land related. It is the same findings the organization used to apply for funding from the Civil Society Foundation in 2008, where they would carry out a three year project to scale up women's access to land.
"Since then, we have carried out extensive campaigns with various stakeholders to ensure that all women, especially in rural areas, are aware of their right to own land. We can now loudly say that these women are slowly exploiting various means of controlling land by negotiating with their partners for more say," she says.
At the organization, where they give legal clinics and educate women on their land rights, they have used awareness on the 1999 land Act, to reach 9250 women among a population of 260,525 in Mvomero District. And some 680 women have got land with deeds.
This is a shift from the earlier findings which had indicated to them that women and children in Morogoro had inadequate awareness of, access to and control over land.
"Their knowledge on the rights to land was very limited,"she says According to her, it was the traditional patriarchal system of male dominance which had been marginalising women and children when it came to control and ownership of land. "This caused family conflicts that affected women and children," she adds.
"We therefore conducted public with awareness programmes concerning land laws training in villages, workshops, monthly seminars, media programmes and information dissemination for them to understand and advocate for their rights on land, "says Masoyi She says women and children were not fully involved in making decisions that affected their destiny.
"We therefore embarked on conflict resolution and public awareness raising and empowerment on legal and human rights so as to do away with such malpractices, " she notes.
To date, more than 1000 disadvantaged citizens yearly are provided with legal services, more than100 paralegal volunteers operate in villages of Morogoro District, they have managed to sensitize the society about land laws specifically for women and more than 650 women have registered themselves for land and have assisted the community to conduct land use plan and build land registries to facilitate attainment of customary land certificates.
"We have been educating them that women have a right to own land and because this is a new phenomenon, it contradicts some cultural perceptions in a number of tribes across the Morogoro Region, "she says, adding, "In many cases, the case was that when husbands died,women were denied land and houses of their deceased husbands-thus also denying children of their rights."
"But we still have to grapple with challenges, because such change of mindset will require major transformations which must be knowledge-driven based on the land laws, "she says. Since 2008, she says they have done negotiations and discussions with various communities in the districts regarding the new law.
These, she adds, have included holding trainings across villages on the need for women to own land, houses and shambas. "In some case, we have also exploited the option of both husband and wife owning land together," she says.
They have also held trips for some leaders in Mvomero District to Mbozi District in Mbeya Region where they have been reputed for giving out cultural land title deeds. Here,they also trained 25 legal assistants and posted them in different wards in Morogoro Region.
These in turn work closely with women with challenges of Maulid's nature. "So far, they have been of great help especially in Mvomero District which was the project's major target, "says Masoyi She notes that when the project started, they involved religious leaders, teachers, ward officers, village chair persons with the view to ensure that they feel part of the process.
However, there were challenges in some communities where it is culturally perceived that women can not own land.
"For example, at one time, during on open meeting at Kibati Pemba,a woman was the first one to speak about the challenges they face in land ownership.
All men walked away because they viewed it as inconceivable for a woman to speak in the presence of men, "recalls Masoyi. "But these perceptions are changing gradually,"says Mariam. Maulid, who now lives with her children in the matrimonial house, says that she had no idea what it meant to own land.
"So, even when I used to get money after selling off my agricultural harvest,I was always handing over every cash to my husband, "she says.
But she adds that when the project started, she attended a public talk about rights on land ownership. "That is when I started getting a sense of land ownership and what comes out after cultivation,"she says. Gender Equality and Women Empowerment programme (GEWEII), it is hoped, would play a level playing field to the women.