by JESS MCCABE
Rozalia Msaudzi farms maize in Iringa, Tanzania.
Tanzania is expected to finalize a new constitution by April next year and women–who carry out 60 percent of the country’s agricultural labor– will be anxiously watching to see if their land rights are strengthened.
IRINGA, Tanzania (WOMENSENEWS)–Rozalia Msaudzi, 68, quietly explains what her life is like in her small village, near Iringa, in the southern highlands of Tanzania. She maintains a collected expression as she relates the hardship of maize farming, the death of her husband in 1996 and the number of children who are still alive.
But her voice starts to rise and she gestures emphatically when one subject comes up: the rights of women in this overwhelmingly agricultural country to own the small plots of land that they farm.
“Women should be given the right to own the land because many women around this village are being oppressed by their husbands,” Msaudzi says emphatically, through a Swahili translator, as we sit on the low, foam pads that serve as her sofa in this modest, mud-brick home. “What they get from their farm, they just use the money for their own and not for the whole family.”
Of the five acres of land that Msaudzi’s husband left when he died, she now has access to one acre, where she grows maize. Title to the other four acres has passed to one of her five living children.
As the country now works to rewrite its constitution, strengthening women’s land rights is a top priority for feminist groups, which have been lobbying a 30-member Constitutional Review Commission expected to issue a final report shortly, with a referendum before the next election.
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Customary Laws Superior
Indeed, the Village Land Act gave women equal rights and access to land as men, for example, stating married couple should be joint owners of any land. In order to take out a mortgage or sell land owned by a married couple, both spouses need to give consent. The legislation also gave women inheritance rights. However, the legislation also allowed “customary law” or religious law to take precedence.
In some cases, customary law expects widows to return to their parents’ family, losing all rights and access to the land they have worked. In other cases they may be granted access to the family land only until any children reach adulthood.
In the vast majority of cases, Rusimbi says, these customary laws are applied, even if they discriminate against women.
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