WOMEN'S LAND RIGHTS AND THE CHALLENGE OF PATRlACHY: LESSONS FROM OZALLA COMMUNITY, EDO STATE, NIGERIA

Iruonagbe, C. T. (2010) WOMEN'S LAND RIGHTS AND THE CHALLENGE OF PATRlACHY: LESSONS FROM OZALLA COMMUNITY, EDO STATE, NIGERIA. Gender and Behaviour, 8 (1). ISSN 1117-1421

PDF Download (10MB)

Abstract

Every community of people has its cultural and economic life rooted in the soil it occupies. The term land may take on a physical as well as a spiritual meaning. Land is a major production resource and lack of control over this important resource has constituted a limiting factor to women's productivity in rural Nigeria. It is not customary for women to own land as this is a male dominated society where patriarchy is practl."ced. Women's access to land depends on marriage and they retain access to land as long as they remain in their husband's household. Surpnsingly, women rarely speak and hardly perceive the inequalities in the division of labour in agriculture because they are culturally legitimized. Yet lack of accessibility to land has created increased poverty, frustration, constant disputes and enmity between men and women. The situation has also become oven uhelming, bearing in mind the fact that a greater population of women and children, the vulnerable in society reside and find their livelihood in the rural areas. Also, women contribute more in tenns of food p roduction for the family. Ironically, women suffer more due to land deprivation and discriminatory cultural practices just as their contribution to the sustenance and persistence of ru ral agriculture is neglected due to male bias. This paper therefore examines women's land rights and the challenge of patriarchy in Ozalla community, in a bid to guarantee gender equity and social justice by reducing the level of discrimination and ensuring that women have rights to fertile agricultural land so as to arrest to an appreciable extent the food crisis in the countnJ by improving their production 011tp11t cmd ens11ring higher iiiCOIIleS

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Cultural practices, customar\·, economic life, food crisis, food production, gender equity, land rights, patriarch~·, rural agriculture, rural areas, social justice
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Mrs Hannah Akinwumi
Date Deposited:	11 Oct 2017 10:18
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2017 10:18
URI:	http://eprints.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/id/eprint/9485

Actions (login required)

View Item