The Women of Sierra Leone Have New Land-Ownership Rights

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The Women of Sierra Leone Have New Land-Ownership Rights
For years, women in Sierra Leone have been stripped or deprived of property that is rightfully theirs. Recent changes in the law are creating a seismic shift that could create greater equality in the country.

By Heiner Hoffmann und Carmen Abd Ali (photos) in Sierra Leone
24.05.2023, 14.46 Uhr


(Der Spiegel) The situation escalates in the office of the lead district officer in Magburaka, located in the sparsely populated region of central Sierra Leone. A man, who had only a moment ago been sitting relaxed in his chair, suddenly jumps up and runs to the other end of the room, where several men are quarreling. They get closer and closer to each other, voices raised. A fight seems inevitable.

Then Susan Conteh begins yelling, her voice rising over those of others. "Enough!" She repeats the exhortation once, and then again. The district officer, a man with a soft voice and gentle gaze, seems overwhelmed. He had just left the room to make a phone call, and now this. Conteh shouts one last time and silence is restored. She begins handing out fines: five euros for the man on the left, another five euros for a man on the right. No one dares protest, not even the district officer, although it's actually his responsibility to issue monetary penalties.

The proceedings are remarkable in several respects: First, Conteh isn't here as a representative of the district government, but as an employee of Legal Aid Board, a government organization that advocates for the rights of disadvantaged populations in Sierra Leone and organizes legal assistance. Second, Conteh is a woman. Until recently, women were excluded from almost all decisions relating to property issues. Not only did they not hold positions on the relevant committees, they frequently weren't even invited to important meetings.

Here, though, in this crisis meeting between two feuding branches of a family at the district officer's headquarters, the men listen to Conteh and fall into line. The feud, as is so often the case in Sierra Leone and many other African countries, is over a plot of land. Those who own land have power, and economic security. Even the devastating civil war from 1991 to 2002 was, at its core, over land control and the resources associated with it.

More than 80 percent of land in Sierra Leone is family owned, which almost always means it is controlled by a male family member. In most cases, the first-born son inherits the property and the daughters go empty-handed. If the husband dies or divorces his wife, the man's family usually seizes the property with the woman often winding up on the street. "Women have been systematically excluded from the key resource of land over the past decades," says Equality Minister Manti Tarawallie.

....(snip)....

"But now everything is different," Conteh says. Over the last year, Sierra Leone has passed several new laws designed to revolutionize the country's land-owning traditions. One of those, for example, is the Customary Land Rights Act, which clearly states that women must not be discriminated against in any way, that they must be involved in all decisions concerning land issues and that they have the same rights as men. Or the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Bill, a law that requires a quota of 30 percent for women on all important boards. The government also wants to set up regional land commissions that will be proportionately staffed by women. .................(more)

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-women-of-sierra-leone-have-new-land-ownership-rights-a-b8e21006-8228-4874-8e81-7cdd7cba20c6