Women's Property Rights Research Articles

The Effects of Property Rights Violations on Economic Independence of Widows in Rarieda Sub-County

The right of women to possess, enjoy and dispose of their property is a universal human right recognized by international human rights treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among many other regional and national instruments. Even with the enactment of laws protecting women's property rights, widows' deprivation has continued unabated. Most widows live in conditions out of the need to conform to social norms demands and meet the most basic of their needs and that of their children. The study determined a) factors influencing property rights violations b) effects of property rights on the economic independence of widows. This study employed a cross-sectional descriptive research design, and semi-structured and unstructured questionnaires were used to collect data. This design helped collect accurate data on property rights violations faced by the study population and how they influenced their economic independence. The study population consisted of widows in Rarieda Sub County. Systematic random sampling technique was used to obtain the 230 respondents to whom questionnaires were administered to obtain quantitative and qualitative data. The study found that major causes of these violations included customs and traditions, poverty, lack of knowledge of laws governing property ownership, and lack of proper enforcement of these laws by the government. 76.5% (176) of the widows were found to have not gained any property post losing their husbands. These widows indicated to have relied on aid from the government, NGOs, and willing family members to make ends meet. The study findings showed clearly that most widows suffer property rights violations in Rarieda sub-county, Siaya County. This, in turn, affects their economic independence. Cultural norms and traditions were found to be among the major factors which influence property rights violations among widows. Traditions do not allow women to inherit their father's or father-in-law's property; hence they are always left at the mercy of the husband's family. The study recommends that the community be encouraged to rethink their customary laws and align this to the provisions of various statutes/laws that grant women the right to inherit property. Keywords: Economic Independence, Property Rights, Widow, Inheritance

Effects of Financial Inclusion and Awareness Creation on Women Empowerment in Kalawa Ward, Makueni County-Kenya

Despite the ever-increasing number of NGOs in Makueni County aimed at socio-economic empowerment of women, gender inequalities are persistent and poverty levels are high. This is evident by low participation of women in decision making process, control over ownership and access of resources and wealth, increased poverty levels, increased cases of gender-based violence. This has necessitated the need to establish the role of NGOs in women empowerment in Makueni County. The purpose of the study was to establish the role of NGOs in financial inclusion of women and the creation of awareness on property rights for women. The anchor theory for this study is the Women Empowerment Framework by Sara Longwe and the other theories used in the study include Kabeers 3-dimensional model; the public goods theory of financial inclusion. The study population was 60 women groups in Kalawa ward, Makueni County who have benefited from the NGOs programs. The total number of respondents were 1254 and a sample size of 294 was used. The findings revealed that financial inclusion and awareness creation on the right to own resources and property influence women empowerment. The focus group discussions highlighted that the NGOs are doing very little in regards to awareness creation on the right of ownership of resources and property. Women cited that discrimination, being left out of development agenda, illiteracy and patriarchal nature of the society as the major challenge. The study recommendations were that NGOs, National and County Governments should provide linkage to markets for the products from the income generating activities by women groups. Both Government and NGOs should develop frameworks to engage women in development agenda. Keywords: Women Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Awareness Creation, NGOs, Makueni County.

Házassági formák és női vagyonjog a magyar társadalomfejlődés korai szakaszában

In the early Hungarian society, multiple forms of cohabitation and marriage were present, often overlapping each other. Separating these forms can only be done by examining certain elements of matrimonial property laws formed by the customary laws of the time. We can only learn about the property laws during the Era of the Arpad Dynasty from written deeds about how these laws were implemented. This study outlines how the different forms of marriage were related to each other and to the property rights of women. It is inaccurate to believe that women in the Middle Ages were disenfranchised, the various forms of marriage had corresponding property laws. Each law and the frequency of their occurrence in these examined documents is discussed in the conceptual system of legal and social history.

Structural change and economic development in the Islamic Middle East 700–1500: Population levels and property rights

AbstractEconomic historians have recently treated Islamic institutions as “growth retarding,” “averse to change,” “path dependent,” “lacking creative destruction” and “extractive” rather than “inclusive” and blamed their failure to change for the underdevelopment of the Middle East. This paper argues for a different approach to Islamic institutions which implies that they boosted economic growth. The paper explores changes in economic structures, a transition in population levels from high to low and a transition to individual property rights and provides economic indicators of growth. Articulated via Islamic law, legally sanctioned birth control and women's property rights were instrumental in assuring low fertility rates and equitable and well‐distributed income in the population. The paper concludes theoretically and empirically that Islamic institutions were innovative, amenable to change and efficient.

Intimate partner violence and female property rights.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects 30% of ever-partnered women worldwide. This study demonstrates how stronger female marital property rights can lead to lower levels of IPV. If women are financially protected outside of marriage, they in turn experience lower levels of violence inside marriage. Using a natural experiment from the colonization of Sub-Saharan Africa, this study aims to isolate the direct effect of large-scale changes to women's property rights from other IPV risk factors. The findings show that more equitable marital property rights could both reduce the incidence of IPV and also increase women's own condemnation of the violence. The empirical estimates suggest that legal property reform could render at least 12 million women less vulnerable to IPV across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Gendered Inequalities in HIV/AIDS: Investigating Linkages between Degradation, Disenfranchisement, Unemployment and Disease

The purpose of this paper is to examine the social, political, economic, and environmental forces that shape disproportionate HIV rates among women in less-developed countries. Specifically, we analyze how environmental degradation and women’s property rights condition female unemployment rates in poor nations and ultimately, patterns of disease. Using data from 105 less-developed nations, we construct a structural equation model to analyze influences on the proportion of HIV cases among women. We find that environmental degradation is an important, though often overlooked factor contributing to the female HIV burden across nations, through mechanisms such as female unemployment, disenfranchisement, and poor access to socio-health services. We also find that restrictions on property rights for women impact female unemployment and access to health services. Conclusions point to the efficacy of incorporating ecofeminist frameworks that emphasize ecological conditions alongside political, economic, and social forces to explain global health and gender inequalities in HIV/AIDS.

The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer by Bonnie S. Anderson

Reviewed by: The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer by Bonnie S. Anderson Leandra Zarnow Bonnie S. Anderson. The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017 Pp. 264, 22 illus. Hardcover, $36.95, ebook $24.99. ISBN 9780199756247, 0199756244. In her generous biography of Ernestine Rose, Bonnie Anderson refocuses attention on this freethinker and feminist "more famous than either Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony in the mid-nineteenth century." (5) Renowned on both sides of the Atlantic, Rose immigrated to New York City in 1836, after earlier stops in Berlin, Paris, and London, each place one move further away from the life she was born into in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland as the daughter of a rabbi. Her father granted his only child the opportunity to learn Hebrew, but not to ask questions. This inherent contradiction led young Ernestine to see how her mind—and that of all women—could not "expand under bolts and bars," and how religion dampened her free will. (13) Rose's first act of defiance—brushing her hair on the Sabbath—foreshadowed her later choice to pen the widely circulated A Defence of Atheism in 1861; she wrote this pamphlet after more than a decade on the speaking circuit promoting women's rights, abolitionism, free thought, and socialism. A consummate orator, Rose's words leap from the page at Anderson's hand. Anderson is upfront about the difficulties she faced getting at Rose's interiority, and makes up for an incomplete personal archive by quoting her subject's speeches and writings at length, contextualizing each turn of argument with care. Readers can imagine audiences hundreds thick, at the edge of their seats, listening to "Mrs. Rose" delivering hours-long speeches alongside more remembered luminaries such as Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, and mentor Robert Owen, an influential British socialist. Rose consistently delivered "the speech of the afternoon," carried debates, faced off hecklers, replied to men's toasts, and concluded with force, "Agitate, Agitate!" (74, 78) Her leading fault, according to Anderson, was she "invoked her familiar stance of preferring to be right than to unite." (157) More than a journey of the mind, The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter reads like a travelogue. Anderson, who wrote Joyous Greetings: The First International Women's Movement (2000), is perfectly suited to carry readers on this kind of voyage. She expertly traces Rose's transnational influences, friendships, conference appearances, and impact. As an immigrant working among primarily native-born activists, Rose injected a global perspective in the U.S. women's movement. At the first National Women's Rights convention in [End Page 111] Worcester in 1850, she remarked, "This Convention was not for the women of New England, not of Old England, but for the world." (72) Rose imagined the United States to be on the precipice of social advancement that would serve as a democratic model beyond its borders. At the same time, as a student of the Enlightenment and follower of Owenite socialism, she helped introduce these European movements to an American audience. Anderson casts Rose as a "minority of one" who traversed social movement boundaries. (98) Among feminists and abolitionists, she remained an outsider as an atheist, immigrant, and Jew. In the company of freethinkers, she stood out for her antiracist attachments. Rose promoted a multifaceted women's rights agenda from married women's property rights—she enjoyed an egalitarian marriage to fellow Owenite William Rose—to economic independence in the workplace—she sold her own line of perfumes. Yet, above all else, she believed suffrage to be the gateway to the full realization of human rights. As Rose explained, "The ballot is the focus of all other rights, it is the pivot upon which all others hang." (83) In other words, full political citizenship was necessary to bring women into public view, improve their private lives, and increase their economic standing. Rose made this case widely to both U.S. and European audiences, framing "women's rights as human rights" well before the introduction of this refrain. Rose lived a transnational life, but in what ways did she self-identify as a...

1723-1724 Yıllarında Konya’da Hibe’nin Panoraması: Hak mı, Haksızlık mı?

Tarihten bugüne insanlar birbirlerine hibede bulunmuşlar, tüm dinler ve hukuk sistemleri de hibe konusuna yer vermiştir. Hibe özünde iyilik içeren bir tasarruftur. Ancak aile içi hibe tasarrufları yakın akrabalar arasında bazen sorunlara yol açmıştır. Osmanlı Devleti’inde İslam hukukunda yer alan hibe hükümleri geçerliydi. Terim olarak hibe bir malı karşılığında herhangi bir bedel beklemeksizin karşı tarafın mülküne geçirmektiren bir akittir. Osmanlı deneminde tutulan ve mahkeme kayıtlarını içeren sicil kayıtlarındaki davalara bakıldığında yakın akraba arasındaki hibelerle ilgili verilerin yer aldığı görülmüştür. Bu makalede örnek olarak 49. Konya Şer‘iyye Sicili’nde yer alan 30 adet hibe belgesi incelenmiştir. Bu sicil kaydında hibe terimlerinin taranması sonucu bunların çoğunun aile içi hibelerden oluştuğu anlaşılmıştır. Özellikle miras davalarında aile içinde yapılan hibelerin, daha sonra davalaşmaya konu olduğu görülmektedir. Ayrıca aile içi hibe belgelerinde yer alan taraflar incelendiğinde kendisine hibe tasarrufunda bulunulan tarafın daha çok erkekler olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Aile içerisinde hibe tasarruflarının kadınların mülkiyet haklarını olumsuz açıdan etkilediğini söylemek mümkündür. Tarihi süreçte aile içinde davalaşmalara neden olduğu görülen bu tür hibelerin günümüzde de benzer sorunlara yol açması muhtemeldir.

Struggle for Legal Women’s Rights in Russian Empire (second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century)

The article goal – showing struggle for legal women’s rights in A. Koni and others legal profession, including work in advocacy institutions in the Russian Empire in second half of XIX – beginning of XX century. Methods of research: modernization and gender history. The main results. In article author establish that the Russian Empire society in the end of XIX – beginning of XX century matured till understanding the equality principle of women and men role in social affairs, their leveling in property rights and in professional activities. Despite of lawyers struggle for women rights in conditions of autocracy were tiny (only the woman question discussion in press) it shows to empire power opposition from lawyers’ side and to society – necessity of changes in women’s legal status. The originality. Author uses memoirs and speeches of famous judge, member of State Council of the Russian Empire A. Koni and articles of leading lawyers, which were published in such newspapers as “Law”, “Law Herald”, “News of Jury and Trusted Council”. Scientific novelty: at the first time article describes the main issues about struggle for legal women’s rights, namely: attitude toward women in general and in legal cases; widening personal and property rights of women; giving them access to higher law education and possibility to apply it in their professional activity. Type of the article: descriptive and analytical. In article author insist that one of the first men, who outline the woman question and started to debate about widening legal women’s rights, was A. Koni. His activity was supported by famous scientists, lawyers, advocates such as D. Stasov, V. Spasovych, V. Nabokov, P. Liublinskiy, I. Foynytskiy, V. Sluchevskiy, and S. Shelukhin. A. Koni achieved particular regulation of widening property rights for women. In struggle for allowing advocacy practice for women author point out 2 stages, during its women tried to hold an appointment as private jury. Author notes first women-advocates in the Russian Empire and Ukraine, for example: E. Kozmina, K. Fleyshyts, L. Ginsburg, and O. Yaroshevska. Author determines that problems in female advocacy in Russian Empire were the same, as problems in Western Europe and USA. Question about allowing women to be advocates and notaries in Russia and Ukraine weren’t decided till 1917.

Are urban women empowered in Pakistan? A study from a metropolitan city

This study investigated the empowerment status of urban women in Pakistan using a multidimensional approach in Lahore – a metropolitan city. Analysis of survey data of 260 women revealed that around two-thirds of women were not empowered. Three dimensions of women's empowerment (WE) – control over resources, mobility and participation in household decision making are relatively weak. A significant proportion of women (49%) did not have control over spending of family savings. A majority of them (70-85%) neither had ownership rights of fixed property (i.e. land and house) nor control over its sale. Around 80% and 55% of women had constrained mobility respectively to financial institutions, and friends (out of city). Moreover, a majority of them did not have participation in household decisions on investment of family savings and purchase of fixed property (i.e. land and house), and availing of financial services. Study also revealed that single women are less empowered compared to married women. Likewise, women with salaried employment were also less empowered than non-working women. Based on findings, the study suggested some key recommendations on women's property rights, improving their role in household decision making, ensuring women friendly workplace environment, and public awareness campaigns through media and academic curricula. It is also highlights that WE is not only key to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – 5, but can also contribute to achieve several other SDGs.

Property Rights of Women Married under Customary Law: Review of Arajulu v. Monday

Under customary law, women are regarded as subordinates to husbands and are deprived of equal rights to the matrimonial property where a dissolution marriage occurs. This practice of denying women equal property rights is repugnant to the principles of natural justice. This article adopts the desktop research to examine the decision in Arajulu v. Monday where ownership of property acquired during the subsistence of a customary law marriage was determined. It examines if adequate monetary consideration is sufficient alone to determine the legal ownership of property acquired during the subsistence of marriage. It found that in determining ownership rights under customary law marriage, strict rules of ownership or proofed title should not be adopted. This case addressed for the first time owner of the property for women married under customary law. It concludes by advocating that courts rely on the rules of natural justice when determining ownership of matrimonial property. Keywords: Customary law; Property; Rights; Married women; Marriage

THE INHERITANCE FEATURES AND THE PROPERTY LAW IN THE TRADITIONAL OSSETIAN FAMILY: GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Modernization processes cover all aspects of modern Ossetian society. The family, this has led to the transformation of gender roles, traditional gender orders and a radical change in the historically established foundations of the Patriarchal form of the family. This determines the relevance of the study of intra-family relations as an important part of the gender system. In the study of the order of inheritance clearly indicated property relations, social structure and hierarchy of society, as comprehensively fixed economic relations. The article is based on the source, literary material, which allows to reconstruct the intra-family legal culture, position and status of women in the Ossetian family. In scientific circulation introduced new archival materials, mostly court cases on the distribution of property, which clearly show how to resolve intra-family conflicts in inheritance. Ethnographic materials give a description of the property aspects of family and marriage relations: the size of the bride price, the content of the dowry, the property rights of the female part of the family. The author investigates the transformation processes in inheritance, legalization of property rights of women during the introduction of Russian legislation in the region. It is concluded that the issues of family division of property, for the most part, were resolved according to the norms of customary law.

Women's housing, land and property rights: a recipe for political instability in post-conflict Burundi

In post-conflict Burundi, land scarcity, rapid population growth, the heightened commodification of land serve as triggers to conflict and violence and significantly threaten the sustainability of long-term peace. This article interrogates the ways land tenure reforms affect women's housing, land and property (HLP) rights in Burundi where despite decades of intense mobilisation by progressive women's groups, the recently adopted national land code is still to be fully implemented. The paper argues that gender-neutral land reforms and law enforcement mechanisms interact with the failure to fully implement the national land code, multiple normative orders and social forces and tend to reinforce male hegemony over land. Although customary land tenure is the mantra of the tenure reform process, and tends to strengthen women's land rights, the various reform measures are skewed in favour of men. The failure to reform the marriage and succession laws is the most significant factor barring women's land rights. The adoption and implementation of laws that guarantee an equal right to inheritance between the sexes, sensitisation of, and the provision of legal aid to women claiming their land rights in front of conflict management institutions are required.

Normative intersectionality in married women's property rights in southern Nigeria

ABSTRACT The fate of marriage gifts during a customary law divorce is significant for the interaction of legal orders in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the context of scholars' fixation with conflict of laws. In analysing this fatet, this article introduces normative intersectionality as a theoretical framework for a nuanced understanding of how laws and socio-economic forces interact in post-colonial settings. Normative intersectionality rejects a legal positivist view of rights, which neglects people's adaptation of indigenous norms to socioeconomic changes. In this sense, normative intersectionality is useful for addressing the traditional Igbo law of matrimonial property, which regards a married woman's property rights as subsumed in her husband's rights. Using the division of marriage gifts in Southern Nigeria as a case study, the article draws attention to how legal orders speak to, rather than against, each other, and in so doing, stresses the adaptive character of indigenous laws. It argues that normative intersectionality illumines the interplay of gender equality, property rights and legal pluralism. Accordingly, it urges judges to use the imitative nature of legal pluralism in post-colonial settings to remedy entrenched systems of injustice and inequality, which often hide under the banner of tradition. Keywords: Adaptive legal pluralism, marriage gifts, African customary law, matrimonial property rights.

Customary Practices and the Issues of Women Property Rights: Case Study of South Punjab (2007-2014)

The world is facing gender related problems in which women’s are discriminated against in almost all walks of life. The present research is focusing on the issues of women. i.e, exchange marriages, women property rights and their maintenance after divorce in South Punjab. The objective of this study is to unveil the structural constraints in the society which have hamperedthe freedom and the autonomy of women. These constraints are operational in the domain of legal-judicial and administration-policing social system of the state that has made the access of women difficult to get the redress and relief against the violation of their rights. In this research, an interpretative mode of research is being used to unfold the relationship of different variables. Some of the variables have their connections on the bases of their influence on the nature of the women’s right in the social setup of South Punjab. Among these variables, independent ones are customary practices prevailing religious doctrines and the sources of materials means. The particular nature of the study and scientific approach of the research, it seemed appropriate to apply quota sampling technique for the selection of court cases. The especially court cases has been segregated to project women image of this region. In this study categories of the cases on the basis of different variables collected from targeted three districts as judgments pronounced and established under family and session court under districts Multan, Muzaffargarh and Dera Ghazi Khan during the period from (2007 to 2014).This study includes ten cases, all related to the rights of women and customary practises. This study had also tried to show the how far judicial decisions were in favor of women to make them capable to empower in the emerging challenges of the time. The study in its analysis tried to show the effectiveness of prevailing family laws to enhance status of women.

К истории зарождения женского предпринимательства в России

<p>В статье охарактеризованы факторы зарождения и развития женского предпринимательства в дореволюционной России. Основными факторами, повлиявшими на становление и развитие женского предпринимательства названы внутрисемейная модель поведения (супружеские и детско-родительские отношения), имущественные права женщины и особенности женского образования.</p><p>Внутрисемейная модель поведения в России с древних времен до революции 1917 г. опиралась на христианскую систему ценностей и была основана на уважительном отношении к женщине. Мужчина играл роль управителя семьи, преобразователя на общественно-государственном уровне, принимающего на себя ответственность за других; женщина — активной и деятельной помощницы мужчины, советчицы, хозяйки дома, хранительницы традиций, в чрезвычайных обстоятельствах принимающей на себя мужские права и обязанности.</p><p>Женское предпринимательство на Руси проистекало из навыков ведения домашнего хозяйства, участия в семейном промысле, ремесленничестве. Образование, в свою очередь, являлось фактором, способствующим выходу женского предпринимательства на более высокий уровень его развития.</p>

Access to Housing Rights and Property Rights for Women: Select Study in Delhi and NCR Regions

This article critically evaluates the housing policies and legal provisions regarding property rights for women in India. It interrogates the inclusion of gender within the policies, programmes and laws, and exposes its biases and skewed priorities. Through a desk review of the policies and programmes and an examination of court judgements, it provides an understanding of the contestations and challenges that exist therein. With carefully conducted interviews and focussed group discussions with women beneficiaries and policy implementers, this article strives to enrich the analysis. It provides a set of suggestions and recommendations on enhancing awareness on women’s right to property and providing women greater access to housing rights. Although the fieldwork has been conducted in Delhi–NCR region, it has implications for the country as a whole. Overall this article contextualises the debates on gender, policy, laws and institutions in a broader framework of material structure s and a patriarchal society. It highlights the significance of creating awareness on gender issues for all concerned, including policymakers, implementers, judiciary and the women beneficiaries themselves.

Critical Analysis of State of Women’s Rights in Nigeria

Notwithstanding the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and several International and Regional treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention On the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Protocol to the Africa Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa; discrimination and violations of women's rights still occupying in Nigeria. Women are discriminated against in the area of politics, decision-making and other spheres; Nigeria is still one of the countries with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world; violence against women exist both in the private and public lives and there are still discriminatory laws that violate the rights of women in our law books. This paper examines the current realities of women's rights in Nigeria under seven headings i.e. Gender Based Violence, Women's Access to land, Access to Justice and Equal Protection Under the Law, Health and Reproductive Rights, Right to Participation in Political and Decision-Making Processes, Right to Inheritance and Marriage, Separation, Divorce and Women's Property Rights. Also, the positive actions that have been taken to address these issues such as the passage of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act and the development of the Standards and Guidelines for the medical management of victims of violence in Nigeria will be discussed. Finally, actions that are required towards the realization of women's rights will also be appraised. Keywords : women’s rights, Nigeria, discrimination DOI : 10.7176/JAAS/53-07

Taking property rights seriously: reducing gender bias in the rural arable land contracting system in China

ABSTRACTChinese women enjoy constitutional and statutory equal rights to men, including property rights in rural land. In practice, however, women’s property rights in the rural arable land contracting system have been dwarfed by those of men. Many women made strategic move in the critical decisions of marriage and divorce to either exploit or circumvent the gender-based practice of allocation of such property rights, which invited backlash and created serious legal and policy challenges. The gender-based bias in basic property right in rural land reflected a long-lasting tension in the current decision-making mechanism in rural China: such property rights of women are attached to their marital status and membership in the rural collectives. The ultimate solution lies in taking seriously such property rights of women and redefining the property right nature of these rights, by decoupling marital status of women from their property rights and institutionalizing such delineation, including allowing full transferability of such property rights.

Property rights of women

Property rights of women