Help Women Access Land and Rights in S. Africa

One of the programs RWM manages is the Rural Entrepreneurship Program, which has the long-term vision that entrepreneurs of rural communities will become expert business managers and be able to use information technology (IT) to develop and improve business performance, and as a result, improve their quality of life. To reach this vision, RWM is facilitating the establishment of cooperatives as a way to promote collective work and learning entrepreneurship in a group setting.

Through this program, RWM has facilitated the formation of groups of predominantly women and some men into groups of ten to ultimately become a cooperative. To date, RWM has assisted 7 cooperatives to register with the government department to receive services.

RWM Director, Sizani Ngubane, has led a movement to protest aspects of South Africa’s Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. The law is seriously lacking as it provides no means to enforce protection of women as land-owners or farm workers in rural areas.

With the assistance of the Legal Resource Centre in KwaZulu-Natal, RWM has developed written submissions and affidavits on behalf its members. RWM will present its case to the South African Constitutional Court before the end of 2007.

RWM has also conducted a series of workshops to inform the preparation for the presentation. This case highlights the story of Khethiwe and her daughter featured at the top of this page.

Historically women on farms tend not to be recognized as occupiers in their own right, but are seen as ‘secondary occupiers’ who can be evicted on the death of their spouse, or father, or whenever there is no patriarchal figure on the property. Though the South African constitution protects the rights of women in all spheres of life, breaking traditional and formerly legal habits in terms of land tenure is not easy in rural South Africa.

In 2005 members or RWM sent an affidavit to the Constitutional Court airing their grievances about the Communal Land Rights Act. The reasons for their formal complaint against the Act stems from the treatment of women farm workers who are evicted if they do not have a male relative to speak for them as well as the inability of women to access communal land through the traditional authorities who control the land. The Constitutional Court invited RWM to the Constitutional Court and are now following up to prepare to hear the case.