Women and land rights in Lao PDR. Treasure your matri heritage before it is too late! Where do we land up on gender equality?

Abstract

In Laos, the “Turning Land into Capital” policy has accelerated the implementation of new land management and land legislation, and a huge land titling project is forthcoming with plans to standardize “joint ownership” for marital land. In this paper, based on a set of interviews, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) activities and 21 FGDs with women (and men) in 7 villages, the gender impact of the rural transition process and related new land policies on women living in a matrilineal-matrilocal village in the lowland, and a patrilineal-patrilocal village in the upland and forest, will be sketched, with a focus on land tenure and gender (in)equality. In policy-making and public debate on land titling the question of how the “joint” ownership for married women standardization can be achieved without sacrificing Lao women’s individual matrilineal land rights is so far not an issue. Neither are the possibilities to claim matrilineal rights, or other out-of-the-box options to empower ethnic minority women for land rights issues. Is there an “in-house” solution for ethnic minority women beyond “state empowerment” by joint land titling? In the context of multi-ethnic villages and increasing mobility spontaneous cultural switches from patrilocal to matrilocal residence are not unlikely and happen in practice. This might be the beginning of a process of matri-isation. Therefore, treasure your matri heritage before it is too late! It is the unnoticed jewel in the crown of all women.