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SPECIAL REPORTS |
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BOLIVIA:
Women Clamour for Right to Land
By Franz Chávez
LA PAZ (IPS) - Despite major advances in
land distribution in Bolivia, single,
widowed and undocumented women in this South
American country have little chances of
owning rural lands due to the patriarchal
traditions and customary practices of
indigenous peoples, in violation of
international instruments and conventions
protecting women’s rights.
The struggle of Bolivian women to own
productive land is only just beginning,
representatives from such diverse
geographical areas as the Andean highlands,
the Amazon jungle and the dry Chaco lowlands
said to IPS at a women’s movement meeting in
La Paz earlier this month.
The National Meeting on Women's Access to
Land, organised by the non-governmental
women’s group Coordinadora de la Mujer,
brought together representatives of women
peasant farmer movements to examine the
legal framework that regulates land
ownership and access, and demanded that the
government eliminate the discriminating
practices and red tape that stand in the way
of women’s access to land titles.
Women’s access to land has long been
recognised as a right by international
instruments, and women’s equal access to
property is specifically protected under
Article 14 of the United Nations Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),
adopted three decades ago this Dec. 18.
CEDAW is considered the most important and
comprehensive international treaty on the
human rights of women. Currently ratified by
185 countries, it is often referred to as
the bill of rights for women.
It laid out a standard that has shaped
national and international laws and
regulations for the protection of women’s
cultural, economic, political and social
rights, and provided a powerful instrument
for the promotion of gender equality around
the world. Among other advances, CEDAW has
served to pressure governments into
furthering women’s equal participation in
rural development and agrarian reform.
But in Bolivia, as in many places in the
world, what’s protected by law is often far
from reflecting reality.
Few of the meeting’s participants were even
aware that the rights of rural women are
specifically protected under the country’s
new constitution, which took effect in
February, and by a special provision of the
National Agrarian Reform Service Act, in
effect since 1996.
Much less did they know that in 2008, in its
consideration of the country reports
submitted by Bolivia pursuant to Article 18
of CEDAW - which requires that parties
report every four years on measures adopted
to implement the Convention - the CEDAW
Committee urged Bolivia to "adopt measures
to ensure women’s equal access to land," and
"explicitly address the structural nature
and various dimensions of poverty faced by
women, in particular women living in rural
areas, indigenous women, older women and
women with disabilities."
The 1996 agrarian reform law calls for the
application of "considerations of equity in
the distribution, administration, occupancy
and utilisation of the land in the interest
of women regardless of marital status," thus
incorporating CEDAW's mandate that rural
women be treated equally by guaranteeing
their right "to have access to agricultural
credit and loans, marketing facilities,
appropriate technology and equal treatment
in land and agrarian reform as well as in
land resettlement schemes."
A reality far from the law
But the rural women interviewed by IPS
complained that, in practice, laws and
declarations are largely ignored in
male-dominated sectors of rural communities,
and circumvented by government institutions
that put up a host of arguments to evade
compliance.
In the Andean highlands in western Bolivia,
where the population is largely indigenous,
requests by single women to own land
individually are rejected by their
communities, as it is traditionally believed
that women’s sole connection with the land
is through their male relatives, former
constituent assembly member and peasant
activist Peregrina Cusi complained.
In the southeastern Chaco region, which
comprises the departments of Tarija,
Chuquisaca and Santa Cruz, Alejandrina
Avenante, a leader of the Guarani People
Assembly, is working hard to demonstrate
that single women do have an interest in
working the land, going against strong
resistance from men.
With this aim, Avenante has organised a
group of single mothers in the community of
Tarairí, department of Tarija, some 1,200
kilometres from La Paz. Overcoming the
prejudices of indigenous authorities, she
helped these women inherit land titles, and
encouraged them to build housing and begin
working the land.
Many of the women hired men to build their
houses but made the mud brinks themselves,
and they have begun planting corn, cassava,
sweet potatoes, peppers and peas.
"They’ve proven that they can contribute (to
their families’ livelihoods) with their own
food production, or with hair products made
from indigenous plants, or with handmade
crafts," Avenante said proudly.
While progress can be seen in the Andean
highlands and the Chaco region, the
population of the Amazon rainforest - a
remote and difficult-to-access region in the
east - has little knowledge of women’s right
to hold agricultural plots, said Jesusaida
Vaca, an activist with the Pando Bartolina
Sisa Peasant Women’s Federation.
Vaca, a representative of the Canahán
community in Bolpebra, a municipality
located where Bolivia borders with both Peru
and Brazil, travelled for two days, riding
on several means of transportation, to
attend the meeting in La Paz, 1,300
kilometres from her home, and share her
experience and aspirations with other women
like her from different regions.
"So far the government has only legalised
communal lands, and no individual lands. A
poor woman has little chance of holding
property. We only say the land is ours
because we work it, but we don’t have a
title that certifies ownership," Vaca said.
In the Amazon region, even though women take
over their plots when their husbands die,
they're usually relegated to the sphere of
the home and childcare. "You can’t talk
about that sort of thing when your husband's
around," she said referring to women's
access to land.
"Machismo is widespread. We're not an
exception," said Marfa Inofuentes, a
representative of the Afro-Bolivian Centre
for Integral and Community Development (CADIC).
Inofuentes' efforts have been instrumental
in socially integrating many members of
Bolivia's black community in what is a
predominantly Aymara and Quechua culture.
Six months ago the Afro-Bolivian community
of the semi-tropical region of Los Yungas,
70 kilometres north of La Paz - a settlement
of 35,000 people that dates back to colonial
times - was granted 191 hectares in a rural
establishment that belonged to former
rightwing president Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada (1993-1997 and 2002-2003).
"It meant recovering lands that originally
belonged to our people and which Sánchez de
Lozada had purchased from our grandparents
for pennies," Inofuentes said. But she also
expressed concern because ownership of many
of the plots they live on is still not
recognised in official land titles.
More alarming, she said, is the fact that in
this area "not a single woman holds property
under her name." They only access a plot
when their husband dies, and that's only if
there are no sons in the family. It's part
of the historical lack of protection these
women endure, she said.
In fact, in its 2008 observations, the CEDAW
Committee expressed particular concern over
the situation of social invisibility and
marginalisation suffered by the
Afro-Bolivian community, which hinders their
access to basic social services, and
consequently urged the State "to take the
necessary steps to address the specific
vulnerability of Afro-Bolivian women and
report on measures taken in this respect in
its next report (2011)."
The Afro-Bolivian community is spread across
the provinces of Casanova, Inquisivi and
North and South Yungas, a warm climate
region of lush vegetation, where there are
also a large number of Aymara farmers who
have flocked to the area more recently,
attracted by the possibilities offered by
fruit and coca crops.
Carmen Avila, a representative of the
Coordinadora de la Mujer, told IPS that
progress has been made with laws that
stipulate equal distribution, tenure and
ownership of land. But she warned that women
are still widely barred from enjoying that
right.
In addition to the red tape, another hurdle
standing in the way to women’s access to
land is the fact that many women in rural
areas are undocumented - they lack basic
documentation such as a birth certificate or
an identity card. There is also the problem
of "discrimination exhibited by civil
servants in the application of the law,"
Avila denounced.
More land titles
In the government's defence, Florien Soto,
general land director and until recently
indigenous leader active in the department
of Oruro, contended that the bodies in
charge of managing lands have regained the
trust of the people because their current
employees come from grassroots organisations.
In its last report to the CEDAW Committee,
the Bolivian government identified women’s
right to ownership of land as "one of the
most problematic issues" and one of the
topics tackled by the State.
In this sense it highlighted its efforts in
the granting of agricultural land titles to
women and committed itself to further
actions aimed at achieving "equal
participation" of men and women in access to
land ownership and the process of
regularisation of rural land titles.
Soto presented a comparative table that
showed that as of January this year, a total
of 10,299 land titles, comprising a combined
surface area of 164,401 hectares, had been
granted to women since Evo Morales -
Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president -
took office in January 2006.
According to the official report, these
figures represent a major improvement with
respect to previous administrations. For
example, during the second government of
Hugo Banzer (1997-2001), only 431 land
titles were granted to women.
Under President Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002),
the number of land titles for women dropped
to 347, while in the second administration
of Sánchez de Lozada (2002-2003), only 283
women were granted official ownership of
their lands.
The figure increased substantially to 1,576
during the government of Carlos Mesa
(2003-2005), while the administration of his
successor, Eduardo Rodríguez (2005-2006),
granted 1,488 titles.
An analysis conducted by the Coordinadora de
la Mujer, based on 1997- 2006 data, reveals
that of a total of 29,063 titles, only 4,973
were granted to women, while 13,011 were
awarded to men, and the rest went to
community organisations (1,814) and married
couples (9,265).
This study does not include the 2007-2008
period and the first month of 2009, which
are included in the official comparative
study presented by Soto. |
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