How can women enjoy equal access to urban property rights?

Women’s land rights in urban areas have been long overlooked as a development issue. There is increased awareness that traditional land tenure systems reinforce gender inequality but is it just a question of giving women formal title to property? Can alternative approaches to security of tenure better promote women’s interests?

A report from University College London (UCL) in the UK assesses the gender implications of approaches to the formalisation of urban property (the processes of integrating informal tenure into a system recognised by public authorities).

The World Bank and other international agencies have promoted land titling programmes across the world. They have generally focused on rural land, but illegally-developed urban housing has also been regularised on a large scale in countries such as India, Mexico and Peru. In many countries the replacement of customary tenure by individual titles has disadvantaged women, as men acquire full control over property. For married couples in urban areas, land is often solely registered in the husband’s name.

Few approaches have aimed to ensure married women’s property rights are secure. There is a difference between having a right to property and being able to exercise that right effectively – especially concerning the disposal of the home in the event of divorce or separation. A woman whose name does not appear on documents relating to the marital home is highly vulnerable should her husband try to sell it.

All too often, planners of titling programmes:

• only focus on ‘female household heads’, which ignores the property rights issues of women who are cohabiting or married
• do not appreciate that household members do not always share the same interests and that relationships are not necessarily defined by consensus and cooperation
• ignore the need to protect married or cohabiting women against the risk that if the couple separates, the woman might become a household head but lose the marital home if it effectively belongs to her former partner.

Making tenure agreements more formal does have its advantages. Documentation can make it more difficult for people to be cheated out of their property. Several governments have introduced legislation to ensure that husbands and wives have joint property rights. In some cases, joint titles can offer women protection from abandonment and increase their decision-making powers over matters such as selling property.

Experience shows, however, that mandatory joint rights are not enough on their own, given the strength of both institutional and individual resistance. Without explicit instruction to officials, rigorous attention to how ownership is recorded and community information campaigns, joint titling policies may fail where women and officials are unable to stand up to resistant males.

The formalisation of tenure can address gender inequality. However, planners and policymakers need to acknowledge:

• States have a responsibility to intervene to protect women’s property rights – gender neutral legislation is not enough to ensure that women have equal access.
• Urban land specialists need to make use of work by gender specialists to ensure that women’s rights to housing and property are protected.
• The current trend towards emphasis on group rights must be complemented by greater attention to individual rights.
• Informal community-based institutions – which may be strengthened by property law reforms – can be hostile venues that disempower women.
• Staff of land registration agencies need gender-sensitivity training.

Source(s):
‘Gender and Property Formalization: Conventional and Alternative Approaches’, World Development, 35, (10), pages 1739-1753 by Ann Varley, October 2007.

id21 Research Highlight: 22 January 2008

Further Information:
Ann Varley
Department of Geography
University College London (UCL)
Pearson Building
Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 76795519
Fax: +44 (0)20 76797565
Contact the contributor: a.varley@geog.ucl.ac.uk

Department of Geography, University College London, UK

Other related links:
'Agrarian Change, Gender and Land Rights', UNRISD/Blackwell Publishing, edited by Shahra Razavi 2003

'Innovation for land rights in Africa'

'‘Culture’ still impedes women’s rights across Africa'

'Does informal housing land delivery work for urban poor people?'

'Grassroots federations bring development to slums'