Securing Women’s Property Rights: Problems of Good Governance and Establishing Norms of Economic Functioning

Abstract

The article deals with the post-project experiences of women who acquired fish farming rights in ponds on government land. In the strongly patriarchal situation of Bangladesh, the establishment of systems of good governance is needed for such redistribution of assets to vulnerable women to take place. Further, it is also necessary to build coalitions against men’s use of violence and other methods to forcibly grab the income or assets of women. The design ofpoverty reduction and asset redistribution approaches has to take account of the need for a long period of support and collateral-free group credit for poor women to be able to establish secure user rights in assets transferred to them, and to develop their economic assets. The successful cases, which are more than half of the total, demonstrate the substantial build up of assets by the women and their gains in security and social standing.