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Abstract
Over the last decade, many international organisations such as the World Bank, Department for International Development (DFID) and United States Agency for International Development have expanded their programmes on land tenure reforms in developing countries. Throughout this process, women's exclusion from land ownership has been increasingly questioned and legal reforms have been suggested as one solution. The aim of this paper is to explore and analyse the experiences of implementers of land registration and titling vis-a-vis women's land rights in the Northern Province of Rwanda. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with administrative staff at different levels involved in the programme. From the implementers' experiences, the findings show that the land certificate does not necessarily guarantee women decision-making over land, but also that women show increased awareness of land issues, which has led to land conflicts involving women. Secondly, the challenges encountered, such as polygamy, inheritance and ingaragazi issues, as well as men's unwillingness to register their marriages, are related to men's customary rights to land and to deeply embedded socio-cultural norms. The implementers' experiences and the encountered challenges during the reform process are framed by the values of a patriarchal society in which the supremacy of men over women is still strong. This leads to a ‘theory/practice dilemma’ where laws and policies that look good on paper are not necessarily easily implemented and where the intentions of laws are not necessarily logic to the local-level implementers.
Funding
This work was supported by UR-Sweden Program for Research, Higher Learning Education and Institutional Advancement.
Notes
1. Daley and Englert, “Securing Land Rights for Women,” 91–2.
2. Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game,” 132–5.
3. Deininger, Land Policies; De Soto, “The Mystery of Capital”; Deininger and Feder “Land Registration”; World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, “Gender Issues.”
4. Bruce and Mogot-Adholla, “Introduction”, 8–10.
5. Razavi, “Liberalisation,” 1479–80.
6. World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, “Gender Issues,” 125.
7. Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game,” 144.
8. Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game,” 145–6; World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, “Gender Issues.”
9. Whitehead and Tsikata, “Policy Discourses”; World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, “Gender Issues,” 127.
10. World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, “Gender Issues,” 127; Deininger and Feder, “Land Registration.”
11. Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game”; McAuslan, “Personal reflection.”
12. McAuslan, “Personal reflection,” 127.
13. This is an extensive preparatory study of LTRP carried out during March–October 2006 by the GoR and its partners. It followed three discrete ‘stages’, which were consultations with sector-level authorities, consultations with the public and trial interventions cell reconnaissance. The findings from this study have contributed to designing the approach and procedures for land registration, including the safeguards needed to protect the rights of vulnerable groups.
14. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda,” 130.
15. Huggins, “Shades of Grey,” 44–50.
16. Republic of Rwanda, Strategic Road Map for Land Tenure Reform.
17. Republic of Rwanda, National Land Policy.
18. Republic of Rwanda, The Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda, article 26.
19. Cooper, Challenges and Opportunities in Inheritance Rights in Rwanda, 5; Gender Monitoring Office, Gender Impact Assessment of the Law Successions, 33.
20. Brown and Uvuza, Women's Land Rights in Rwanda; Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game,” 144.
21. Van Der Molen, “Unconventional Approaches to Land Administration.”
22. Narendra, “A Critical Account”; Parsons, Public Policy.
23. Parsons, Public Policy; Narendra, “A Critical Account”; deLeon and deLeon, “What Ever Happened to Policy Implementation?”; Thomas and Merilee, “After the Decision.”
24. Jackson, “Gender Analysis of Land”; Rao, “Custom and the Courts”; Cousins, “Contextualising the Controversies,” 19.
25. Levit and Verchick, Feminist Legal Theory; Rudman, “Equality before Custom?”
26. Sutton, The Policy Process: An Overview.
27. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, The Integrated Household (EICV3).
28. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, The Integrated Household (EICV3), 94.
29. Brown and Uvuza, Women's Land Rights in Rwanda.
30. Englert and Daley, “Introduction.”
31. Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game,” 136–7.
32. Laurel, “Land Access,” Ansoms and Holvoet, “Women and Land Arrangement”; Polavarapu, “Procuring Meaningful Land Rights”; Brown and Uvuza, Women's Land Rights in Rwanda; Daley and Birgit, “Securing Land Rights for Women”; McAuslan, “Personal Reflection.”
33. Ali Ayalew, Deininger, and Goldstein, Environmental and Gender Impacts.
34. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda.”
35. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda.”
36. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda.” 84; Veldman and Lankhorst, Legal Empowerment, 23.
37. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda,” 113–9.
38. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda,” 113–9.
39. The lowest level of government authority with responsibility for dispute resolution in Rwanda is that of the Abunzi ( Local mediators) governed by the Organic Law of 14/08/2006 on Organisation, Jurisdiction, Competence and Functioning of the Mediation Committee, and have jurisdiction in the first instance for civil cases relating to lands and other immovable assets.
40. Ackerly and True, Doing Feminist Research in Political and Social Sciences.
41. The process of LTRP based on the respondents' experiences may not recount exactly the official procedures nor what actually happened. For more details, please see Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, “Ahead of the Game” especially pp. 135–6, and MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE Ltd, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda.”
42. Agarwal, “Gender and Command over Property”; Agarwal, “Gender and Land Rights Revisited”; Deere and León, Empowering Women; Holden and Bezu, Joint Land Certification; FAO, “Improving Gender Equity”; Deininger and Feder, “Land Registration, Governance and Development”; Jackson, “Gender Analysis of Land.”
43. See Bayisenge forthcoming paper on women's experiences of the LTRP in Rwanda, specifically the section on LTRP and women's decision-making and control over land.
44. MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda.”
45. Article 9, point 4 of the Constitution of Rwanda of 2003, focuses on equality of all Rwandans and between women and men reflected by ensuring that women are granted at least 30% of posts in decision-making organs. Similarly, the article 8 of the Organic land law guarantees the representation of women at each level of the land commissions.
46. Other trial districts were Gasabo, Karongi and Kirehe, see MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE, “Phase 1 of the Land Reform Process for Rwanda,” 3–4. See also Bayisenge's forthcoming paper on the complexity of Land Rights of Women Living in Polygamous Relationships in Rwanda.
47. Article 2 of the inheritance law of 1999 states that upon entering marriage spouses shall choose one of the following matrimonial regimes: (1) community of property; (2) limited community of acquests; (3) separation of property. In case no provision is made, the spouses shall be deemed to be married under the regime of community of property.
48. Ingaragazi should not be confused with ingaragali sometimes also known as indeka (leftover) or ibisigara (vacant land) which is the land that remain with the parents after sharing land (iminani) to their children, see MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE Ltd, “Phase 1” 54–9. Ingaragazi was mentioned by the informants during this study as the practice that is known and specific to the study area though the practice is disappearing due to land scarcity and legal land reforms. See also Bayisenge forthcoming paper on the complexity of Land Rights of Women Living in Polygamous Relationships in Rwanda for more details.