Feature: Kenya's widows access to land still a mirage despite favorable laws

Access to land as a resource for development among widows in Kenya is a distressing issue of discussion despite the laws protecting their rights to land.

The Constitution outlaws violation of an individual's right to land or property on basis of gender while Matrimonial Property Act clearly stretches out justice to a woman denied access and enjoyment of the respective assets.

Nevertheless, the cultural factors strongly spike out overriding the legal achievements made toward prospects of eliminating violation of widows' land rights, according to advocates of women's human rights in Kenya.

"Cultural factors are still key in women accessing land," says Agnes Rogo, the senior legal counsel for FIDA-Kenya's Access to Justice Programme (AJ) in Kisumu, western Kenya.

FIDA-Kenya is an organization of female lawyers who fight for rights of women and implement programs that advocate for end of all forms of violence against women. They also represent the women in such cases.

Even in the existence of favorable legislations, the community customs, traditions and taboos have left widows with no option of thinking about land as their own after the departure of their husbands.

"In some tribes, for instance Kalenjin (mainly found in Rift Valley region) and parts of Luo (western) land, it is taboo for a woman to have a title deed in her name," she explains.

"In such cases, even if it is the woman who purchased the land, title has to be in her father's, husband's, brother's or son's name. When the relationship with the title owner becomes sour, the woman is left out in the cold."

She says these cases are very rampant in western Kenya, an area where wife inheritance is also common and widows are commanded by customs to undergo some harmful cleansing rituals before another man takes her as his wife.

Notably, widows' denial of inheritance by in-laws with community's support is a form of violence against women considering the Convention on Elimination of All Forms Violence Against Women (COVAW) which provides a universal basis for promoting women rights as human rights.

Ignorance of procedures followed in acquisition of land in regard to succession in the family equally contributes to abuse of widows' right to land.

The Law of Succession Act does allow a woman to inherit land upon death of the husband. It however indicates that her rights are terminated when she remarries.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has done an assessment on violation of women's property rights in Kenya in which the agency particularly identifies discriminatory customs as major contributing factor to abuse of widow's rights to property including land.

"Many widows in Kenya are excluded from inheriting from their husbands. When men die, widows' in-laws often evict them from their lands and homes and take other property, such as livestock and household goods," it states in its report titled "Double Standards: Women's Property Rights Violations in Kenya".

To address this problem, some civil society organizations are taking awareness campaigns to the doors of communities and utilizing alternative dispute resolution mechanisms through traditional systems, FIDA-Kenya being among them.

According to Rogo, sensitization of the widows on their property rights is bearing fruit for they become knowledgeable of the legal system backing their strive.

She says they also train council of elders who steer the alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in the affected communities.

The elders, who represent the traditional system of governance very common in Kenyan communities, then intervene for the widows especially those who lack legal documents such as title deeds to sustain a case in court, says AJ's senior legal counsel.

From HRW's observation in its report, failure to confront women's property rights violations in Kenya will perpetuate women's inequality, doom development efforts, and undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS.

It speaks against biased attitudes towards women in which traditional leaders hold opinions that women are untrustworthy or do not deserve equal property rights. Endit