Examining women's land rights protection under customary system of administration in Uganda : a case of Koboko District

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which customary administrative norms and practices protect women’s land rights in Koboko District. While customary land administrative norms and practices have been presented as feasible for protection of customary land rights, the rural women have continued to experience rampant violation of their customary land rights. To examine the extent to which such norms and practices protect women’s land rights, a qualitative research approach was adopted with a phenomenological feminist standpoint design. Twenty rural women were purposively selected as key informants. To corroborate the information from the key informants, four clan leaders and two district customary land officials were interviewed. Interviews, focus group discussions and document analysis methods were used to collect data. The study found out that; Customary land in Koboko is that which is called ―Menu‖ in Kakwa belonging to the clan and is named according to the founder grandfathers who later allocate it to their grown up sons following where their mothers cultivated in what is commonly referred to as ―Yobu na‖ (name of the mother); meaning the ―land of‖ (name of the mother). The study also found out that while land administrative practices of allocating land rights, registering such rights, communicating land rights information and setting up conflict resolution mechanisms would enhance protection of land rights, inadequate monitoring of women’s rights for normality, lack of guard against abuses, exclusion of women’s names from certificate of customary ownership, unpersuasive communication of women’s land rights information and the inability to identify and analyze threats have to a greater extent undermined protection of women’s land rights under the customary system of land administration. The voices of the rural women captured emphasize that until there are declarations and documentation of rights, formalized proactive acts of caring by protectors, forums to persuasively communicate women’s land rights and genuine acts of threat identification and appraisal during dispute resolution process by trained customary land administrators, protection of women’s land rights remains elusive. The study therefore recommends Ministry of Lands to deliberately train the customary land administrators in management of women’s land rights, support different tribal groups to codify their customary laws and vet such codified laws for their gender discrimination to guide women’s land rights allocation, information communication with clarity and adjudication of cases of abuse.