Tag Archives: Corruption

Customary law, traditional norms and values, leading obstacles to women accessing land

 

ZWACT Executive Director, Sandra Matendere

BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA

A report by the Zimbabwe Women Against Corruption Trust (ZWACT), has revealed that customary law, traditional norms and values, are the leading obstacles which limit women’s access to land.

The report titled, “Gendered impact of land corruption and displacements on women’s access to social-economic rights in Zimbabwe”, follows a research which was conducted in Masvingo and Manicaland Province.

The research which was led by Allan T. Chaumba, was commissioned to interrogate the extent to which women enjoy their access to land rights in Zimbabwe with special attention given to victims of the 2023/4 internal displacements in the Masvingo and Manicaland Provinces.

ZWACT Executive Director, Sandra Matendere, said while the research was carried out in the two provinces, it’s a fact that displacements are happening in various other provinces, hence when resources permit, they will move to other areas.

Major findings from the research were largely drawn from a sample of at least 500 women constituting 95 percent of the respondents reached out, whilst an insignificant 5 percent were male participants.

“Customary law, traditional norms and values are leading obstacles at 45 percent, followed by corruption at 19 percent, inadequate legal and policy frameworks at 9 percent and lack of implementation of existing legal and policy frameworks at 9 percent.

“In addition there appears to be a lack of political will at 8 percent, to address these challenges considering the fact that they existed during the pre-independence era and the same still exist 44 years after Zimbabwe Independence in 1980,” read the report.

The report further states that forms of corruption limiting women’s access to land rights, include favouritism.

“Favouritism at 35 percent, came prominent as the most common form of corruption, which involves showing preferential treatment or giving unfair advantages to some individuals or groups based on personal relationships rather based on real need for land.

“This leads to inefficiencies and incompetence in decision-making processes.

“This is followed by nepotism at 29 percent in which individuals in positions of power or authority show preferential treatment to their family members of friends often at the expense of more deserving and qualified candidates.

“Bribery scored 24 percent in which public officials and traditional leaders are offered items of value (such as money, livestock, gifts or favors) to give land to the landless.

“Women lamented being poor and unwilling to give such bribes and that explains why some of them do not have land even if they wanted to pay the bribes.

“In addition, 6 percent of the respondents accused public officials of demanding sexual favours in exchange for land,” added the report.

It was also revealed that in terms of land ownership, women still lag behind with only 2 percent claiming to be owning the land where they stay and also where they were evicted from in Manicaland and Masvingo Province.

And it was added that 98 percent did not own the land.

“Traditional leaders who had allocated them the land, had done so in the names of their husbands who also did not have papers as proof of either legal occupancy or ownership.”

Lillian Tinotenda Muhwandavaka, ZINASU National Gender Secretary

Comment on the issue of young women’s access to land, Lillian Tinotenda Muhwandavaka, ZINASU National Gender Secretary, said it was really difficult for a girl child who wants land.

“As young women we are being denied access to land because they feel we don’t deserve because we are young women and there are a lot of reasons that are given.

“If you look at it, only 3 percent is representing us in Parliament and as we all know, we have our young women who should be representing us concerning this issue.

“So as young women we are really being treated unfairly, we have nowhere to air all our grievances.

“And you should know that no one understands the situation better than the person who is affected by that situation, so we need young women who amplify our voices concerning this.

“There is need for a serious policy change so that young women are empowered to have equal access to land, just like their male counterparts,” said Muhwandavaka.

She added: “because if you look at it from a rural perspective, young woman are not expected to say that they want land because they are told they can only access this when they are married.

“We have to give them the space which allows them to grow economically in different spaces, so this is something that is affecting us as young women; let’s consider young women.

“Young women need to be considered so that that they are part of the decision making processes so that we can realize our full potential.”

ZWACT to action report findings

Sandra Matendere, ZWACT Executive Director, flanked by Dr Onesmus Nyaude (left) and Allan Chaumba

BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA

The Zimbabwe Women Against Corruption Trust (ZWACT) which recently successfully launched its report titled, “Gendered impact of land corruption and displacements on women’s access to social-economic rights in Zimbabwe”, is now working on implementing the research findings.

Speaking on the sidelines of the launch, ZWACT Executive Director, Sandra Matendere, said while the research was carried out in Masvingo and Manicaland, it was a fact that displacements are happening in various other provinces, hence when resources permit, they will move to other areas.

“After launching this report, our next step is to publicize our research findings, on various platforms.

“And another point of action is we are going to engage the Parliament and also local authorities, sharing with them our findings and recommendations.

“And very soon, we are going to have an engagement with the Parliamentarians and we are going to give them the recommendations and also influence policy reforms in terms of land allocation and also the reactions of the governments when displacements take place.

“These are the issues which want to be addressed, especially on compensation in terms of the gendered approach in terms of addressing these displacements,” said Matendere.

She added: “these issues of displacements are happening countrywide so if resources allow, we are going to do similar engagements and researches in various provinces so that we see which area is affected the most in terms of the land corruption so that it can be addressed.”

Matendere said in these two provinces where the research was conducted, evictions took place, leading to women experiencing a lot.

“So we went to these areas to find out how these issues of land corruption and displacements affect women and girls in those communities.

“So today we were sharing the findings from the report and basically, it shows that a lot of women who are staying there, they got the land from the traditional leaders from those communities.

“But however they didn’t have the title deeds and they were settling in State land which is not allowed for them to reside. So the issue is why are the evictions happening this year after 10 years of settling in these communities.

“So we wanted to find out how we can chip in, in terms of coming up with policies or recommendations to the policy makers on the existing legal frameworks in terms of the land distribution to have a gender lens in terms of land distribution because we have seen that the evictions were done arbitrarily without protecting the rights of women especially those with disability, they were affected by these evictions.

“And also we wanted to see the existing legal frameworks which allow people to settle and they are evicted from their communities,” she said.

Matendere added that another issue that came out from the report is that women lost their livelihoods from the evictions, as some of them were not evicted physically but emotionally. She added that in some of the court cases, the women were represented by some human rights lawyers pertaining to the evictions and they won the cases.

“Regardless of winning the case, the challenge is that they were affected psychologically because of the uncertainty of their stay in these communities, they are not sure when they will be evicted again from those communities.

“So they won’t make any meaningful developments in these communities. So it is affecting them, so they actually need support, psychologically or counselling because most of them they have been affected.

“There are also some women who are from migrant backgrounds, they bought the land from the local leadership because they don’t have anywhere they can stay, so these are their only homes, so evicting them from those places it’s a mammoth task, it’s a challenge to them, so it’s something that is affecting these women.

“So we want our policy makers to assist in terms of implementing the existing policies and also to amend the legal frameworks that are allowing the disagreement in terms of who owns which land. Because as it stands, some local authorities are allocating land and then the village heads are also allocating, so we need a single framework which is clear on who owns land, who has the power to allocate land,” she added.