Influencing Land Rights for women Karatu District

In rural Tanzania, particularly in Karatu District, land is a crucial asset that supports livelihoods and enables individuals and households to expand their economic opportunities. Most Tanzanians living in Karatu are farmers who obtained their land through long-standing customary norms. However, weak land rights protections and a lack of documented ownership or use rights have long been seen as a source of local disputes, a constraint to how farmers use and invest in their land, and a barrier to household economic growth. A lack of land documentation in these communities limits the participation of women and other vulnerable groups in agribusiness, and women often face higher risk of disenfranchisement of their land rights.

Our findings (Assessment of Land Ownership to Women, Karatu, TAJPI 2019) indicate that the majority of women within villages are illiterate; unaware of any existing entitlements and lacking in sufficient assets to fight for their rights, and that their involvement in land administration institutions is limited. At the family level, daughters and women are deprived of any right to possess land either through inheritance or whatever because relatives believe they will be married to other.

As a local pioneer in fighting against violation of human rights in general and peace justice and integrity in particular TAJPI  designed this initiative that aims to facilitate land formalization and acquisition of Title Deeds to 100 women from Karatu District. Since its launching, the project has achieved some milestones, regardless of financial inability we encounter. Most of the contribution we received to attain these milestone was in-kind basis.

For this second quarter, we have managed to facilitate the availability of title deeds for two (2) women from Rhotia Village, which is among the village served by project.

One of the widow spoke emotively how some relatives of her deceased husband had threatened to chase her and children from their land.

"I am now relieved of the burden of caring for my family after getting the title deed," she said. “I can also use it as collateral to borrow money from a bank.”

Availability of fund will allow TAJPI to reach its target (as our target is to facilitate availability of Title Deeds to 100 women)

We would like to take this platform to ask our kind supporters continuing to support us so that we change the lives of these marginalized women.