- Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation -

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"In pursuit of universal ideals"

Current Projects and Programmes at JOOF

WOMEN'S RIGHTS TO OWN AND INHERIT PROPERTY

Background
The right to own and inherit property is a crosscutting right that traverses the realm of Civil, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural rights. It is central to the true empowerment of all in society and is a key developmental right. It is the common right to all societies and cultures. It is a right that was shared by all members of the community (men, women and children) in all cultures. It is central to securing the dignity of all members of society.

Emerging legal and social trends, as they relate to the ownership and inheritance of property, indicate a practice that has largely worked out to the detriment of women in virtually all communities and social classes in Kenya. They include the laws relating to property, to marriage and dissolution of marriage, the land registration systems and the social and cultural attitudes that determine the actual enjoyment of this right.

There is also the increasing alienation of women and the emerging trends of the abandonment of community responsibility on the care of the vulnerable within society. Most of the resources in the country are in the hands of men. Women own less than 5 % of land in the country yet they provide bulk of the workforce in agriculture and are the main managers of family land for subsistence farming; only a small percentage of women can access credit since the majority don't have property in their names.

Of particular urgency to this issue are the circumstances that have emerged in the wake of the HIV/AIDs disaster in Kenya. The effect of HIV/AIDS on women is worse than it is on men. Women are more vulnerable to HIV infection for various reasons, both c and socio-economic. Women suffer more from the high stigma associated with this scourge and this has manifested itself in the way that women infected and affected by HIV/AIDs have been treated in our society. One indicator is the multiplied instances of abuse of the right to own and inherit property by these women. This abuse is extended to other members of HIV affected families particularly orphans (both girls and boys).

The State has some legal and structural framework in place that can address a small percentage of the cases in question but it does not have adequate implementation mechanisms to intervene on behalf of the large majority of those abused. The cultural structures and authorities, on the other hand, are deafeningly silent as these atrocities happen in their backyards. Is it not time to awaken the conscience of those concerned, particularly those charged with the cultural responsibility to safeguard the welfare of their communities?

A group of concerned gender and human rights advocates, initially working with the POLICY Project-Kenya and latter with other consultants from the POLICY project in Washington DC and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR); egged on by the prevailing complex contexts and needs, believe that a marked improvement in women's opportunities to share in the enjoyment of the right to own and inherit property has the potential of changing the Kenyan civil, political, economic, social and cultural landscape for the better.

It can reduce the opportunities for social conflict and therefore increase the sense of human security; it can reduce the number of unstable households and the accompanying number of economically and socially vulnerable and helpless members of society; a reduction in the number of vulnerable individuals will translate into a reduction in the level of instances conducive to the spread of HIV and increase the opportunities for proper care and management of the existing cases; the economic empowerment of women through equal sharing in family and State property will help to stabilise and improve the Kenyan economy.

The Government, Development partners, Civil society Groups, Faith Based Organisations, Cultural structures including families and any other entity interested in the economic development of Kenya and the economic empowerment of women will appreciate the importance of promoting this right.

Objective

JOOF, POLICY Project-Kenya and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights have been coordinating an initiative, whose key objective is to strengthen Kenyan women's ability to equally access the rights to own and inherit property.

In sum, the aims of this project are to:

Identify the real issues in the laws, policy, institutional practice, popular behaviour and beliefs/customs that hinder the true enjoyment of the right to own and inherit property by women in Kenya and to set priorities on the focus points for an effective advocacy strategy.
Support initial steps of a sharing and collaborative planning process among NGOs and other stakeholders to enhance result oriented work in the area of women ownership and inheritance rights in the Kenyan society.
Generate new knowledge and understanding of practical approaches to incorporating women's rights and advocacy into the developmental concerns of all structures of society at the formal and cultural levels.
Facilitate consultations between the community and cultural gatekeepers with a view to coming up with community-grown solution to this problem.
Generate new knowledge and understanding of practical approaches to incorporating women's rights and advocacy into efforts to mitigate HIV/ vulnerability.
Expand capacities in Advocacy, Planning and Structural Power Analysis to target different structures in society using different complementary players for effective delivery on the objective.
Create a wide stakeholder interest in focusing on the need to promote the right by Kenyan women to own and inherit property as a means of enhancing Kenya's efforts to deliver on the enjoyment by all of socio-economic rights.

Workshop and Public Hearing on Women's Right to Own and Inherit Property in the Luo community- Nyanza Province

In response to the request for community based interventions at the Nakuru workshop, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the POLICY Project decide to facilitate consultative forums, between Stakeholders, within the different communities of Kenya at the cultural level for discussions on this problem.This would create the opportunity of trying the project on the ground.

They elected to begin with the Luo Community in Nyanza province given the community's existing cultural structure, the effect of HIV/ AIDs on this community and the existing network of groups that have expressed a need for intervention on behalf of widows in the community. They identified Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation (JOOF) as the community partner to move this initiative with. JOOF is one of the organisations that have previously been at the forefront in moving initiatives on advocacy strategies on HIV/AIDS within the Luo community.

The initiative begun with a workshop, for a few selected stakeholders from representative groups namely widows and orphans ( including HIV/AIDs infected and affected widows and orphans), the Luo Council of elders, Members of Parliament, Civil society representatives ( Particularly CBOs), Proffessionals from the Community, Retired Community leaders ( men and women), religious leaders, observers from the provincial administration.This was followed by a public Baraza on 1st Dec 2004(World AIDs Day). The organisers took note of the fact that the theme for the 2004 World AIDs Day was Women and Girls.

The objective of the anticipated workshop and public baraza in Kisumu (on 18-19/11/2004 and 1/12/2004 respectively) was to principally give Luo widows a forum to air their concerns (property rights and inheritance) before a gathering of Luo elders so that constructive dialogue can be ignited at the community level with a view of looking into means and ways of ameliorating the predicament of these widows, who reportedly, are habitually victimised by families and in-laws.

Why Luo widows? The focus was firstly made on the Luo widows because, despite the fact that 90% of Luos are Christians, they, paradoxically, stand out, among the Kenyan communities, for having continued to be at the forefront of religiously abiding to traditional customs, many a times, at the expense of their women's (widows) (property) rights. The quandary of the Luo widows has been compounded by the HIV/AIDs pandemic, which has in reality devastated Luoland, leaving in its trail a big number of widows, particularly those in their 20s, who are by and large the most vulnerable considering that unlike their relatively older counterparts, they are usually unprepared for widowhood, financially and psychologically, emotionally and physically.

Since many of these vulnerable women, are unable to seek redress from the mainstream justice system (mainly because of lack of finances), there is need to strengthen those cultural safety nets that had, since time immemorial, been used to redress disputes in our traditional communities. So, the structured cultural institutions of authority such as the Luo's Ker system; the Meru's Njuri Ncheke; the Borana's Gada system should not only be revitalised and supported, but also made human rights-friendly. Why? Because they will be cost-effective and therefore more accessible to all and unlike the adversarial system of our courts, the mechanisms of these traditional structures strove to forge social harmony. Of note, these cultural safety nets were destroyed by the advent of concepts such as capitalism. The concern, therefore, is not that culture is per se bad, but whether its implementation affects women's property rights.

The activities with the Luo Community were such a success and an eye opener for all that attended the functions. The following are some of the issues that came to fore:

That a lot of widows and orphans rights were being abused in the name of and contrary to Luo culture .The council of elders and all other leaders were united in condemning this acts and agreed to actively do something to protect widows and orphans.
That there is need for the Luo council of elders to be given capacity on this issue to enable it to set up an effective cultural intervention structure within the Luo Community. In this regard, it was agreed that the council of elders will work with the political leaders and other stakeholders in the community (including women) to ensure the establishment of Community based councils of elders which shall be the implementing structures on the ground for this project. In so doing the council shall take into account some of the councils that are already in place and are functional. It was agreed that the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation would be the focal point in this regard.
That there is need to organise a strategic planning meeting for the Luo council of elders to effect the agreed issues.
That there is need to give capacity to stakeholders working within the community ( CBOs, FBOs and NGOs) to enable them to identify cases of abuse and work with the elders to facilitate interventions.
That there is need for the officers of the provincial administration working in the community to be given capacity on this right in order to increase the collaborative efforts to effectively alleviate this problem.
That there is a need for the Luo Council of elders and the Provincial Commisionner to meet and plan interventions in all the cases of the widows and orphans that presented in the Nyanza activities.
That efforts should be made to also identify cases of widows in urban slum areas that need intervention by the elders.