30 years after Beijing: Women’s land rights remain in limbo – Report

Three decades after 189 nations, including Nigeria, endorsed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a recent report from the Rights and Resources Initiative indicates minimal progress regarding women's rights to land inheritance at the community level.

The report highlights that merely 13 percent of the legal frameworks in 35 countries that have embraced the BDPfA acknowledge women's rights to inherit land within their communities.

The RRI, a global coalition comprising over 200 organizations committed to promoting the rights of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, local populations, and women concerning forests, land, and resources, noted that the absence of prompt, gender-transformative measures to uphold international human rights standards has rendered the achievement of gender equality goals by 2030 increasingly improbable.

The BDPfA serves as a global policy framework addressing gender equality and women's empowerment, which was adopted during the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.

This policy emphasizes various issues, including women's economic equality, education and training, political engagement, health, violence against women, and rights related to land ownership and inheritance.

In Nigeria, particularly in the northern regions, women farmers are unable to inherit farmland, leaving them vulnerable to landlords who may revoke their access to the land at any moment.

Research from the World Bank reveals that in Nigeria, only 8.2 percent of women aged 20-49 possess land ownership independently, in contrast to 34.2 percent of men.

The RRI, which published the report yesterday during the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, lamented the insufficient progress made by numerous countries in securing women's rights to forests and land, emphasizing that only 13 percent of legal frameworks recognize women's community-level inheritance rights.

It cautions that "urgent intervention from governments, policymakers, donors, and allies is essential; otherwise, this inequality not only jeopardizes the livelihoods of women and their communities but also undermines the broader efforts to address climate change, safeguard biodiversity, and promote sustainable development globally."

The RRI further highlighted the significant contributions of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women in advancing various global initiatives, ensuring food security within their communities, and preventing deforestation in the territories they inhabit and manage, which constitute nearly half of the world's land area.

"Despite representing half of the 2.5 billion Indigenous and rural individuals reliant on collectively managed lands and forests, and nearly a decade of advancements in international law and national legislative reforms, the report indicates that as of 2024, only 5 percent of legal frameworks governing community forest tenure sufficiently safeguard women's rights to leadership at the community level.

"According to the most recent data gathered through RRI’s Gender Methodology, the findings reveal that merely 13 percent of legal frameworks acknowledge women's rights to inherit within their communities, while only 2 percent recognize women's voting rights at the community level. These rights are crucial for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women to secure and manage the forestlands they have depended on for generations," stated the RRI.

Additionally, it pointed out that although all the countries reviewed have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, none are close to fulfilling their legal responsibilities to uphold women's community-based rights concerning membership, governance, inheritance, and dispute resolution.

RRI emphasized that with less than five years remaining to fulfill the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the minimal advancements noted between 2016 and 2024 highlighted the unlikelihood of governments achieving gender equality goals by 2030 without immediate, transformative actions aimed at aligning with international human rights standards.

In response to the report, RRI Coordinator Solange Bandiaky-Badji remarked, “The global and regional advancements towards fulfilling SDG Goal 5 on gender equality, as well as state obligations under CEDAW and the strategic objectives of the Beijing Declaration, remain alarmingly inadequate.

“With only five years left to meet the 2030 Agenda objectives, our report builds on existing data regarding land and gender, emphasizing that substantial efforts are still required to achieve these targets. To realize the SDGs concerning women’s rights, it is essential to prioritize, fund, and expedite the recognition of land and resource rights for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women, ensuring alignment with international human rights laws.”

Furthermore, Omaira Bolaños, the Gender Justice Director at RRI, asserted that the insufficient progress in securing tenure rights for community women represents a direct infringement of human rights, individual autonomy, personal liberty, security, privacy, and integrity.

She stated, “The rights that are crucial for community women to influence their own and their communities’ interactions with forest resources, as well as their participation in voting and leadership, continue to receive the least protection under national law. This inadequacy hampers their ability to contest gender-discriminatory norms and engage meaningfully in significant decisions that affect them.”

Nevertheless, the report acknowledged some signs of progress, attributed to the resilience and relentless advocacy of community women.

RRI noted, “African countries have enacted the most legal reforms since 2016; however, the 13 countries examined show the least advancement regarding the forest tenure rights of Indigenous peoples.”