Tag: HIV

Nigerian rural women farmers joined over 300 other women all over Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in demand for a just and equitable distribution of farm lands in Africa. Assistant Editor, Seun Akioye who joined the women at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro reports.

There is something disturbing about the eyes of Anne Ambayi anytime she talks about her difficult life in Nyanza province of Kenya. Even though, Anne narrates a biter experience, there was nothing in her eyes that speaks of her true feelings. There was no bitterness in her eyes, neither was there forgiveness.

The story of Anne’s struggle with the culture of the Luo people of Nyanza province began in the year 2000 when her husband Steven Ambayi died. It was not his death that crashed her life but that he died of the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS).

Anne tested positive too. But it was not contracting the disease that became her immediate problem and struggle; it was the fight against one of the most entrenched cultures in Africa: The inheritance culture.

“I have not been inherited,” Anne said with an expression that was difficult to decipher. “A widow has no right to own any farm or plant anything until she has been inherited, at the death of your husband, you must take a man to have sexual relationship with you. For you to be able to plant in the Shamba (land) there must be a man who will be having sex with you even though you don’t marry him.

“Especially when you want to plant, harvest, that is the culture. My husband died in 2000 and I have not been inherited because of HIV Aids. That time it was very much affecting people, my husband died of HIV Aids and I felt that maybe I am positive and I will infect a man, I decided to go for a test and I decided to stay like that. From that time I have been living alone with my kids, been without a man has brought a lot of trouble in my life.”

Anne’s problems were compounded because she had no male child, her three female children also stands disinherited and the only way to feed her family is to allow a man turn her into a sex slave so she could  have access to land, to plant, and to harvest. “That is the culture of the Luo people,” she said.

After the death of her husband, her in-laws insisted on her being “inherited”, her refusal made them come to eject her forcefully from the Shamba. “One morning they came, with knives and cutlass, I didn’t know what to do so I gathered my three children and we started shouting, we were screaming so the community came, people prevailed over them and they left us. For one year, I didn’t farm, my children were without food, I was washing clothes to survive,” she said and for the first time, her eyes revealed a weakness. She smiled.

The second year, hunger drove her back to the Shamba and she started planting, groundnut, millet and vegetables. “ I thought they would kill me, I was ready for anything, but when they saw me on the land, they just left me alone,” she said with another smile, it was a smile of victory.

 

African culture disinherits women farmers

Over 300 African rural farmers including Ambayi came together in Arusha, Tanzania to press African governments into action on social and cultural factors, land laws and policies that disinherits rural African women from owing lands to farm.  The conference, “Women To Kilimanjaro” was organized by Actionaid, an international nongovernmental organization which supports social changes in societies. Actionaid is supported by the African Union, Oxfam, International Land Coalition (ILC) and Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (IPLAS).

The Women  To  Kilimanjaro Initiative was conceived in 2012 and it was aimed at  creating a space for rural women to participate in decision making on  matters dear to them. One of these is the issue of access and ownership of land in Africa.

The Initiative also involved climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Standing at 5,888metres or 19,341 ft above sea level (2014 measurement), it is the highest peak in Africa. The farmers would take some of the key demands of the women assembly up to Uhuru, the highest peak of Kilimanjaro.

Some of the key demands include: Full implementation of the African Union Guiding Principles on large scale land based investment and Tenure Guidelines on land, ensuring free, prior and informed consent  for all communities affected by land transfers, review public policies and projects that incentivize land grabbing and support policies that prioritize the needs of women small scale food producers.

Other demands are: Regulate businesses involved in land deals so that they are fully accountable for respecting human rights, tenure rights and environmental, social and labour standards, strengthen the Africa Land Policy Centre resource capacity and enact and enforce laws that secure participation and representation of women in decision making in land and natural resource governance.

  The issues of land ownership and access have been paramount in rural sub-Saharan communities. Though there is no reliable statistics, but it is estimated that women own less than 20 percent of the lands in Africa. Also, the percentages of ownership and access differ from each region and country.  According to some statistics, women represent between 60 and 80 percent of the agricultural labour force, and play an increasingly important role in Natural Resource Management and food production.

The women also depended on a variety of international charters and conventions which many of the African countries have signed and ratified. Some of these include the Maputo Declaration, The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), The Beijing Express Declaration, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the African Charter on Human and People’s Right, International Covenant on  Social Economic and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),  Declaration of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (DICAFRRD).

While many African countries including Nigeria have signed and ratified these conventions, rural farmers in Africa still faces increasing discrimination based on customary traditions which relegates women in decision making and inheritance.

The Kilimanjaro Initiative noted that customary regimes are largely responsible for land tenure in sub Saharan Africa, in countries where legal framework exist, men rely on traditional customs to continue to discriminate against women ownership of land especially through inheritance.

HIV/AIDs, Land Grabbing, land privatization are also factors espoused for the discrimination on land ownership. This was the case of Ambayi.

“I am not following the culture ,they ostracized me because I have not cleansed myself, till now I have not cleansed myself so I stay like that. When anybody comes to me, I tell them I have not cleansed myself. The culture hinders us, if you are not inherited you stay without food, the government can stop these culture, how does it benefit the woman, it has made men to insult and take land from women, Ambayi said.

Following her positive test for HIV, she joined a group of other positive widows to press for her rights. “I joined the group of women living positive, Power Positive, then there was no drug, we strengthen each other. It acts as pressure group. In Nyanza,  they say to us that we are positive and will soon die so we don’t need anything.  It is trouble, when your husband dies, we say cry with one eye and look at your property with the other because the in-laws will take it.”

Our land is our life

There are many heartbreaking stories coming out of Africa on women and access to land and these stories are supported by the brutal tradition and culture about the superiority of the male child. Take for instance in Nyanza province of Kenya where Anne Ambayi resides,  boys are the owners of the land. “ If you don’t have boys you cannot be given a land,” says Millicent Adhiambo, a woman’s right activist in Kenya.

Adhiambo said land is the most important commodity in rural Kenya where most of the women depend on the farm for subsistence living. “ The rural women are suffering, if only they have access to land life will be better, the problem is traced to the grassroots where discriminatory cultures are still being enforced on land. Once a widow, the first thing that is taken away from you is the land, the widow who is the breadwinner has nothing to feed her family on,” Adhiambo said.

But the culture of depriving women of land cuts across Africa, there is 58 years old widow Barbara Saunyama from Manicaland province in Zimbabwe. When her husband died in 1996, the family came for the family land.

Barbara and her three children were thrown out, now 20 years after, through a corporative organisation organized by Actionaid, many widows were able to come together to buy land to farm. “ Now I can live happy and train my children in school,” she said. But in Manicaland, the land not only belongs to the man, the produce of the farms belongs to him too. “ The man can rent the land to the woman but whatever she produces goes to the man, the women work for the men, whatever money we make is given to them and mostly the men are not faithful that is why many rural women have committed suicide,” Barbara revealed.

The story of 45 year-old Grace Mariwa from Sesheke Province in Zambia is not much different after her husband died leaving her with five children, her land was taken away by the community and she was left with nothing. “Women don’t have powers to get land in my province, only the men can get title deeds to land. Now, I have been given a land by the women’s group I belong to, whatever we make we share together, it is hardly enough but it is something,” Grace said.

Across the continents, there are different layers of restrictions placed on women over land ownership, in some countries, women cannot buy land even if they are economically viable to do so while in others, land may be sold to women with money.

 The case of Ghana is however curious, according to Alia Mumuni, Programme Officer of Actionaid Ghana, in the Ashante region where the lineage is matrilineal, women are able to inherit and own lands but in the northern regions, women are not permitted even though, they may be sold some land if they have money.  Also, the power of land administration rests on the traditional rulers who ultimately use it against the women.

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Voices of Nigeria’s women farmers

Lovelyn Ejim Nnenna has been farming since she was old enough to carry the cutlass and hoes following her parents to the farm, so it was only natural that she would read crop science in tertiary institution and end up with a job in the farm.

Today, she has six hectares of farm land with about two hectares going into rice farming. “ I make enough for my family at the end of the year, I have never borrowed money from the bank since I started farming because my husband supports me,” Nnenna said.

Nnenna who resides in Enugu with her husband said there is access to land but no ownership, even though she owns her own farm, it has not always been so easy. “The farm I have is mine but I still push for others, I got the land from my father, the ones he bought and inherited, I am the only surviving child of my father so I inherited everything.

“But the uncles were funny but God made it possible for me to suppress them. It was a real war, they came with guns and machetes inside my compound and it was not a joke, but people were there so they could not shoot, they wanted to chase me out of the farm,” she narrated.

In her community, if a woman leases a land for farm and if the crops happen to yield in multiple fold, the owners of the land would demand the land back and replace it with an inferior land and production will drop.

“ That is why we are canvasing for land ownership. What we are saying is not to buy land, I am a child, they will say I will go to my husband’s house, they will disinherit me in my father’s house, it is all over Nigeria. Our push is that every child born into a family has the right to inherit the land in that house.”

Nnenna is not alone in this push for land ownership in Nigeria, in 2012 Actionaid Nigeria helped to organise the Nigerian small scale women farmers into a formidable organisation that would amplify the voice of the rural farmers.

The organisation that was born, Smallholders Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) began to aggressively enlist rural women in its rank. By 2016, the group has at least 500,000 registered rural women farmers according to Nnenna who is the national secretary.

SWOFON began an advocacy to improve the lives of women farmers especially regarding land allocation and ownership. They want a review of the land tenure system to enable smallholder women farmers own and control land, review customary land laws for women to inherit land for sustainability and government to allocate land to women farmers’ cooperative societies.

Nnenna: “SWOFON is a big platform, we have up to 500,000 women in our register, small scale farmers, we want to see that the lowest woman in the community is respected with her farm activities. We have contributed to the economy,  but these women are in the remote areas, they get nothing from the government.”

One of the women who didn’t get anything from the government or family is Otiunya Regina from Afikpo Ebonyi state. In her community, the men own the land and it doesn’t matter if you have a male child, the woman would still be disinherited.  “In my community, they own land by the kinsmen, women don’t own land in Ebonyi state, land is not for us as women. You can buy land though; but if your husband dies they will stop giving you land even if you have 100 boys. I am telling you the truth. I and my husband bought the land I am planting, we are planting cassava, my brother has so many hectares of land and he even promised to give me five hectares.”

But her case is not isolated. Okoye Georgina has a two hectare farmland in Agwu, Enugu state where she plants only food crops even though her desire is for the big time cash crop farming. “ I am an accountant by training, after school I could not get a job so I decided to go into farming,” Okoye said.

Unlike many of the women, Okoye married a man who “hates farming”. But her husband has come around after years of planting. Okoye said she is not rich and barely makes enough for her family. “ It is very annoying, we women are just like a visitor in our own land, the woman has no right to own a land only the male child does,” she said.

Okoye’s mother suffered the same fate, disinherited after the death of her father, she labored to train all her five children both males and females. Today, Okoye’s two hectare farm was leased from her brothers and she paid a “certain amount to them.”

“ I cannot plant cash crop on their land, I am the one farming on the land and when they are discussing about it I cannot be there. If I have anything to say I will have to beg my own younger brother, the one I trained to help me put my case forward to my other brothers, it is very frustrating and annoying.”

There is a little dimension to it from the northern part of Nigeria. Hannatu Soni, from Kaduna state says in many parts of the north where the traditional values hold sway, women can only own land on conditions. Soni owns two farms, one was  given to her by her husband and the other leased from family.

“If you want  to enjoy anything from your late husband, you either agree to marry from his family or you forfeit  your inheritance.  You may be given something small from the properties but when it comes to farmland, they don’t believe a woman can inherit farmland.

“Most women either rent or benefit from their husbands farm, if they are widows, they may be given a farm that is not fertile, so when she invests all she has and tried to revive the land, you find  that in the coming years they will take the land from her. You hardly benefit from land inheritance, “ she said.

In the Niger Delta, the situation is the same. Mrs. Esther Grace, a smallholder farmer from Delta State who struggles with unprofitable farm said women do not inherit land in her culture. “ In our own area, women can’t inherit a land from the parents but you can buy the land for yourself, if you don’t have money that means no land. I have three acres and my major crop is cassava.”

Sarah Yapwa is currently the President of SWOFON and the wife of a preacher. She has two hectares of maize and beans farmland in Billinri community, Gombe state. One of her farms belongs to her husband and the other was bought. She has been fortunate to have an understanding husband who allowed her ownership of land. But it has not always been so. She was disinherited from her father’s land by her own brothers.

“ In the northern part of  Nigeria in the Muslim community the wife has right to land but  in the Christian community, the girl child is supposed to have land  according to the Bible but our men decided to use tradition because it favours them, the tradition says the land belongs to the man. This is wrong, when God created Adam and put in the garden and Eve too He put in the garden not that Adam should come and carry Eve into the garden.

“We are crying that the men should give us our land, it belongs to the men and women, we should have equal land, we are indigenes of the land, this is our Garden of Eden. The big issue is inheritance and there are communities where even if you have the money as a woman they will not sell land to you. There are communities in the East and North. Your brother or husband must come with you before they sell the land to you, this is annoying, it is wrong,” Yapwa said.

 She cries against the culture of disinheriting women: “The woman has no inheritance, the culture and society are against her having land, as a father, your daughter will not inherit you, as a wife you cannot inherit your husband. In some places if you have a son, they will give him his portion and the mother can farm on the son’s farm. But in some communities, they will tell you to come and marry your husband’s brother before you can farm on the land.

“That should not be so, the woman should be allowed to choose the man she wants to marry if she wants to marry again, that is why most women are frustrated and go into prostitution. I have seen some of them prostituting themselves because they cannot inherit their father or husband.”

Yapwa believes without smallholder farmers, the economy of Africa would have collapsed. “Without the small scale farmers feeding Nigeria the economy of Africa will collapse,  the beans, the millet, the vegetables that we eat are from these women. So only if government will do away with these foreign investors who will collect the land with the support of the government, and the women becomes labourer on our own land. It happens in Kogi.

“The money the government is investing into new alliance and investors, they should put it in SWOFON, give us the big land and mechanization, we need the power tiller not the big tractors. We have access some now that is why we are able to farm two hectares, we cannot do that with hoe.”

But the Lagos state example is instructive, Chinasa Asonye, a former accountant who became a rice farmer and now manufacturer said the government through  Rice for Job initiative gave women land and grains and even helped them improve to mechanized farming.

“We have started training the youths through the  Commercial Agricultural Development Project (CADP).  This year, they empowered me with a processing machine, I have the processing unit, storage and drying. My rice farm is about six hectares. But we have specialized, I am fully into processing, we are classified now as off takers, we go and buy off the rice, I go around the country to buy rice from the women,” Asonye said.

Asonye believes that  if the government can empower local rice farmers, there will be no need for rice importation in Nigeria. “The problem is government has not empowered the local farmers, they need to give them milling machine and processing unit. In Ebonyi state, in one community, there is only one milling machine there,  if all women have my kind of processing unit, the rice we have can feed the whole nation.

 “We don’t import beans or yam, go to Kebbi, you will be stepping on rice in Yobe and Kebbi, they will be begging you to come and buy because after harvesting they cannot process,” she said.

Ojobo Ode Atuluku, the Executive Director, Actionaid Nigeria believes the Kilimanjaro Initiative will send a message to Nigerian government: “Kilimanjaro is significant for Nigeria because when it comes to women’s land rights, Nigeria stands at the back of the queue , some laws  like the Land Use Act which has been a controversial document since 1978,under it women cannot get land, because only if you have the economic, political and able to traverse the labyrinth of the land allocation procedure that you are able to get a little piece of land.

“ In traditional practices, women cannot own or inherit the land, families deprive women of land, there are a lot of complicated issues, the African Union leaders have made a commitment including the Nigerian government that by 2025, land ownership for women won’t be an issue. This is very significant for Nigerian women and as long as land remains something that we hold important as access to food  and credit, we hope the government will sit up and listen.”

 

A Charter of Demands

The African women farmers were not interested in rhetoric and empty promises, they were determined to make their voices heard and they chose an unusual location to present their demands:  At Uhuru peak on Mount Kilimanjaro.

 Thirty-eight of the over 300 women began climbing the mountain two days before the gathering of the women. It took the climbers five days to summit and return to the foot of  Kilimanjaro to a heroic welcome from their compatriots.

“We have taken our demands all the way to Uhuru peak, we are sending a strong message to the African governments that our land is our life,” Constance Okeke, one of the coordinators of the Kilimanjaro Initiative said.

The demands of the women was further strengthened by the declaration of the African Union Summit that 2016 is “ Africa Year of Human Rights with particular focus on the Rights of Women.” The Kilimanjaro Initiative therefore offers a unique window of opportunity to unify and amplify the struggles of rural women in a politically  correct climate.

Some of the demands taken to Uhuru peak on Kilimanjaro include: Women empowerment – land rights, technology, economically, Translation of land laws and policies into local languages, Digital inventory of public, community, and private lands so that all land is identified, recorded, and made public for safeguarding , 50% involvement of women in decision-making bodies and implementation on land issues and matters (including in the valuation of land and payment of compensation for natural resources), Women and communities must have a say on who and what kind of investments and companies invest in their communities.

Others are: Investments in land should be done in partnership with communities, governments, and investors, The challenges of people living with disabilities and other vulnerable groups (people living with HIV/AIDs, widows,), namely stigma, discrimination, cultural biases, lack of access to information and infrastructure must be taken into account in all land matters and they must be represented in decision-making bodies and involved in the implementation process, Pastoral lands must be protected, Ban oppressive cultural practices  and Government should enact laws to provide security and protection of women’s rights defenders.

In rural Africa, the women wants the widows to be issued with title deeds, they want the laws their countries have signed to be implemented correctly and land redistribution should take place. “ Let all the widows be issued with title deeds, let the laws be implemented correctly, without land there is no food, without food there is no life,” Ambayi shouted.