Who told them we want this Bill? The Traditional Courts Bill and rural women

Abstract

abstract The Article discusses the Traditional Courts Bill of 2008 and its likely impact on the balance of power in rural areas. It describes improvements women have managed to win over the last 15 years, and argues that they are the outcome of vigorous processes of debate and contestation over the content of custom involving a wide cross-section of people in rural areas. These processes of debate and contestation are put at risk by the top-down construct of chiefly power embodied in the Traditional Courts Bill and other recent legislation reinforcing the powers of traditional leaders to unilaterally define the content of custom within ethnically delineated tribal boundaries. The Article discusses the laws as the outcome of the successful efforts of the traditional leader lobby to bolster their contested authority with statutory power. It argues that what is at stake is which voices are allowed to participate in the definition of custom, and on what terms. It discusses the impact of national law on contested power dynamics at the local level, and the privileging of chiefly voices in the legislative process. It begins with the views put forward by rural women in a series of consultation meetings about the Bill. Notwithstanding the problems associated with such courts they are often the only accessible source of justice in rural areas and many women argue that they should be reformed, rather than abolished. The Article argues that the Bill fails to address many of the problems raised by rural women, and would instead exacerbate them.