Women’s land rights in sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter demonstrates the tension between law and cultural norms in regard to women’s rights to land in Africa. It examines the prospects for the actualization of women’s land rights in sub-Saharan Africa. Women’s contribution to agricultural production in Africa is very high. Women form a majority of smallholder farmers who produce about 80% of the food, both for household consumption and for sale. Social and cultural norms in sub-Saharan Africa do not prohibit women’s access to land. In all parts of the country, women are culturally prohibited from inheriting land and in many ways they themselves are treated as objects of property. The general guarantee of non-discrimination in African countries lacks practical meaning for women because laws and policies tend to fight shy of upsetting social and cultural norms. Instead, the most important determinant of the success of law under conditions of change is the distance between the law and the social and cultural norms that it must change.