Lack of land lack of dignity

Lack of land lack of dignity

In most third world countries the people are small farmers (peasants). They till small plots of land as owners, tenants and/or share croppers.
Peasants depend on their farms for almost all of their basic needs. Having or lacking an access to land thus becomes a matter of life or death. And this brings us to women’s rights to landownership-when they are married and live together with their husbands or when they are divorced and live by themselves.
In Ethiopia women’s right to land ownership even though it is on paper the implementation lacks commitment from the officials with traditional thinking.
The following personal story of an Ethiopian sex worker (woman) may perhaps generally represent the lots of millions of peasant women! The story comes from a focus group discussion (FGG) in Ethiopia.
She and her husband used to jointly own a plot of land and some livestock. They had six children. When they divorced she got her share of that property based on the existing family law.
Nonetheless, her ex-husband and his relatives continued coming at night to terrorize her to leave the land. Her repeated report of the incident to the local administration did not help her get any legal protection.
Her life became increasingly threatened. She then decided to leave with her two small children leaving the rest behind. With no clear destination insight she just ended up in a city far away from her native village.
With two children and without urban-life skills getting a job became imponderable.
She said, “For my survival and the survival of my children I had to sell myself and thereby my dignity to become a sex worker because the administration failed to enforce the existing family law. “