Fading Customary Practices In Africa – Opportunity For Enhancing Access To Land For Women In Tanzania

Debates on women rights to land in the Sub-Saharan Africa have focused on affirmative actions needed against norms and traditions that have discriminated women rights in land ownership. Studies in Tanzania indicate radical reforms made in land and mortgage laws that have guaranteed women's access to land and benefits reaped therefrom. In practice, however, these rights have not been fully realized mostly in rural areas where traditions and customs are overtly discriminatory. Inheritance laws and customs and in some cases religion, discriminate women with widows being thrown out of their spouse land immediately upon demise of their husbands. Daughters are denied right to inherit family land and married women are discriminated from share benefits from their land in case of sale or compensation incidences. Although it is established that women are more active in rural land uses than men dominating between 60 and 70% of agricultural uses, mostly for production of food, only 20% of women-owned land in their names in 2015. Tanzania is a signatory to the international conventions on human rights such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Maputo Protocol and the 2014 MulaboDeclaration. Nevertheless, women’s rights to land have persistently been denied in rural areas. The key principal challenges that land administration faces in the Sub-Saharan Africa are not in the laws nor policies but in the complexity of access rights to land between men and women in the context of cultural and religious beliefs and enforcement of the laws and policies established. The paper draws lessons from an investigation on the unfolding realities in men-women relations resulting from fast urbanizing Tanzania, characterized with inter-tribal marriages that diffuse customs, traditions, religion and the growing affluences amongst women. The key questions that paper seeks to raise and seek explanation is whether women land rights would be more secured with dilation of traditions and customs or their total rejection. It also seeks to evaluate experiences from countries that uphold traditional chieftainship like Ghana with a view of exploring potential transformations that are necessary in enforcing perceived women rights. The paper urges authorities to develop an understanding of traditions and customs in their areas which are discriminatory to women’s land rights. These customs are those to do with land allocation and use, succession of family land and inheritance. It is posited that understanding such customs is not an easy task.