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Women, Land and Customary Law

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Women, Land and Customary Law Women, Land and Customary Law Authors: Debbie Budlender Sibongile Mgweba Ketleetso Motsepe Leilanie Williams of Community Agency for Social Enquiry February 2011 Publisher: Community Agency for Social Enquiry 31 Oxford Road Forest Town, Johannesburg South Africa Tel: +27-011-6465922 ISBN: 978-0-620-49752-7 The research reported in this publication was made possible through financial and other support received from Canada’s International Development Research Centre and the United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Team in New York. This support is gratefully acknowledged. 2 Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................... 1 LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... 4 ACRONYMS ................................................................................................................................................. 6 GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................................................. 7 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ...................................................................................................... 9 Problem statement ................................................................................................................. 9 Collaborators .........................................................................................................................12 The three survey sites ...........................................................................................................14 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 17 Annotated bibliography ..........................................................................................................17 Archival research ...................................................................................................................18 Development of the questionnaire .........................................................................................19 Focus groups .........................................................................................................................21 Training and fieldwork ...........................................................................................................22 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................... 24 FINDINGS FROM THE PRE-SURVEY FOCUS GROUPS ........................................................................ 30 Types of relationships ............................................................................................................30 Defining the homestead .........................................................................................................40 Access to land .......................................................................................................................42 FINDINGS FROM THE SURVEY ............................................................................................................... 47 The composition of the homestead ........................................................................................47 Demographic characteristics of the respondent women .........................................................53 Marriage ................................................................................................................................58 Children of respondent women ..............................................................................................64 Married women ......................................................................................................................71 The homestead’s land ...........................................................................................................83 Productive use of the land by the homestead ........................................................................95 Use of and control over land of respondent women ...............................................................98 Inheritance .......................................................................................................................... 112 FINDINGS FROM THE POST-SURVEY FOCUS GROUPS .................................................................... 118 Use of land .......................................................................................................................... 118 Land allocation before 1994 and after 1994 ......................................................................... 127 Loss of access to land ......................................................................................................... 133 Marriage .............................................................................................................................. 137 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 141 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 143 2 List of figures Figure 1: Composition of homesteads by site ............................................................................49 Figure 2: Highest level of completed education .........................................................................54 Figure 3: Types of work done in the past year (%) [Multiple response] ......................................56 Figure 4: Homestead's main source of income ..........................................................................57 Figure 5: Marital status of female homestead members and respondent women ......................60 Figure 6: Residence status of children aged 20+ by sex ...........................................................67 Figure 7: Material contribution by child's father by relationship to mother ..................................69 Figure 8: Percentage of women within each marital status category with at least one child ......70 Figure 9: Detail of marriages .....................................................................................................72 Figure 10: Detail of marital status by age ..................................................................................73 Figure 11: Registration of customary marriages ........................................................................74 Figure 12: Percentage of women, mothers and grandmothers who were ever married (%) .......75 Figure 13: Area of residence of divorced, separated or abandoned women ..............................77 Figure 14: "Owner" of the homestead where women, married or in a stable relationships were living (%) ............................................................................................................................78 Figure 15: “Owner” of homestead for married & widowed women (%) .......................................81 Figure 16: Area of residence of respondent's biological mother and grandmother.....................82 Figure 17: Homestead's land tenure status [Multiple response] .................................................83 Figure 18: Homestead’s access to land (%) ..............................................................................85 Figure 19: Homestead's usage of available land over past 12 months ......................................86 Figure 20: Time period in which the homestead's residential plot was first acquired .................87 Figure 21: Ways in which homestead's land was first acquired .................................................92 Figure 22: Person(s) responsible for acquiring the land ............................................................93 Figure 23: Amount of food that the homestead consumes that it produces itself .......................96 Figure 24: Main user of various types of land ............................................................................99 Figure 25: Respondent women's personal usage of land in the 12 months prior to the study .. 100 Figure 26: Person(s) taking responsibility for decision making regarding the use of various types of land .............................................................................................................................. 101 Figure 27: Women's involvement in decision making about the land ....................................... 103 Figure 28: Main basis of women's decision making ................................................................. 105 Figure 29: Person(s) responsible for decisions related to sale, rent or transfer of land ............ 108 Figure 30: Consultation regarding decisions made about the disposal of the homestead's land ........................................................................................................................................ 110 Figure 31: Main basis of women's involvement in decision making related to the sale or transfer of the land ........................................................................................................................ 112 Figure 32: Inheritance
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