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Hurdles for women in accessing land

Columnists
Lands and Rural Resettlement minister Douglas Mombeshora should be applauded for taking action against land officers who were engaged in unscrupulous deals where kickbacks were allegedly received before land was parcelled out to beneficiaries.

Lands and Rural Resettlement minister Douglas Mombeshora should be applauded for taking action against land officers who were engaged in unscrupulous deals where kickbacks were allegedly received before land was parcelled out to beneficiaries.

One can imagine the frustration of many people who had nothing to offer and yet they genuinely had the desire to have access to this land which is supposed to be given freely.

I have personally tried getting land using the stipulated processes, but I have always hit a brickwall because of reasons best known to some land officers.

The land resettlement programme started in the early 80s when I was still a civil servant and it was clearly meant to accommodate those wishing to access better fields from the identified land around Zimbabwe.

But I gave up somewhere along the way as it became evident that one had to have a relative in authority or some “chef” to fast-track the process.

The result has been that I have reapplied several times with no success and as I speak right now, I am holding onto forms which I completed about a year ago which were never handed in as one land officer from some province always came up with all excuses before I could submit them.

I am so glad that this land officer is one of the handful that have been redeployed to other ministries.

But the irony of the matter is that there are many people who came long after me that were allocated land and this left me wondering as to what criteria is being used to “dish out” this land.

I have no doubt that there are many people, especially women, that have been denied this right because they are probably not well connected to the powers-that-be or perhaps just the patriarchal tendencies that come into play.

Yet, Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Several measures have been introduced in the past couple of years to enhance the legal status of women, including legislation which empowers the equitable division and reallocation of property, including land.

However, women still do not have equal access to land in the communal areas. And married women have only secondary land use rights through their husbands.

Divorced women are required to vacate the land and acquire new land in their natal homes. In addition, rural women who are not in formal employment are not covered by social security schemes.

Women constitute the majority of people tilling land in Zimbabwe, but access to that land remains a pipedream for many because of patriarchal tendencies that remain deeply rooted in society.

It is a known fact that it is the women who are used to work on the land and yet land ownership still remains a preserve of men. So many questions are asked when women seek access to land as government officers still believe that women should benefit as a family or married couple.

But we all are aware that there are so many households that are being managed by women, following death of a spouse, divorce or sometimes single by choice.

At a meeting held in Harare on Thursday, journalists discussed this matter at length and it became very clear that a woman needed political connections in order for her to gain access to farmland in Zimbabwe.

“I had to use a politician to push my forms and I now have a thriving farm where I am growing lots of vegetables that are currently under irrigation.This would not have been possible had I not asked someone in authority to fast-track the process because it had become evident that I would not get any land,” a woman journalist lamented.

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The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) noted that women farmers are the pillars of African agriculture which employs over two-thirds of all women who produce nearly 90% of food on the continent.

FAO indicated women are responsible for growing, selling, buying and preparing food for their families yet remain marginalised in business relations and lack control over access to resources such as land, improved seeds and fertiliser, credit and technology.

“Women serve as the backbone of agriculture and food production in Africa, but the potential of women in agriculture is left largely untapped. African women comprise approximately 70% of sub-Saharan agriculture workers and 80 of the actors in the food processing chain.

“Agricultural programmes are rarely designed with women’s needs in mind due to a combination of logistical, cultural, and economic factors, coupled with a lack of gender statistics in the agricultural sector. As a result, African women farmers have no voice in the development of agricultural policies designed to improve their productivity.”

There is also a strong need to specifically focus on rural women and to address key gender disparities at various levels in the distribution process as well as access to productive resources, information and technology. Spaces must be provided for women to voice their concerns and recommendations regarding agriculture production and food security.

FAO estimates that that opening up access to women farmers could increase total agriculture output in developing countries by 2,5% to 4% and reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12% to 17% — or approximately 100 to 150 million people.

Women constitute over 50% of Zimbabwe’s population and most of them reside in the villages or farms while their spouses work in the cities.

Zimbabwean women have for a long time battled for equal rights, but patriarchy reigns supreme at institutions that are supposed to bridge this disparity.

And I am personally not giving up until I get a piece of land where I can grow vegetables, rear rabbits, poultry and cattle for the development of this country.

But who will expedite this process for me, if I may ask?

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