Women’s Land Ownership and Empowerment: A Case Study of Mrigauliya Village Development Committee Nepal

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Land traditionally is seen as source of divine of its association with sustainable livelihood, prosperity, social status, economic security and political power in Nepal. Women’s rights to property have been incorporated into various national and international legal and political documents including UDHR, ICESCR, ICCPR, CEDAW, and the Beijing Declaration of the Fourth World Conference on Women in promoting economic growth and alleviating poverty. It evidently indicates that human rights is closely connected to the right to private property (Cheneval 2006) and uplift the living standards of marginalized people comprising women (The Kathmandu Post 2010). The discriminatory provisions about the women's right to partition share is unconstitutional and is a form of exclusion (Luintel 2001:93). It is even against the provisions of international instruments relating to human rights to which Nepal is a party, which means it is a denial to human rights. Cheneval (2006:11) argued that the denial to human rights opens the door to slavery and exploitation. Although in legal terms, women’s equal inheritance rights and equal rights on husband’s property is mentioned beautifully, there continues to be striking differences between contemporary property law and actual practice. Since, women’s property status is exceptionally low in Nepal, land entitlements are put forth for the advancement of women’s empowerment. Hence, the key exploration of my quantitative survey is to find the linkage of empowerment through women’s land entitlement.
This study collected quantitative data from 100 women from Mrigauliya Village Development Committee (VDC). The study reveals the facts that 41 out of 100 women legally own the land. Data from the survey showed that mostly (96%) women have security of land tenure as wives and daughter-in-law, whereas in rare case through parents (2%) and own selves (2%). Only two women have full control over their land who interestingly happened to be widow with small children and living separately. A major obstacle to the implementation of women’s property rights is the lack of more gender sensitive lenses to consider the complexity of issues surrounding women and the achievement of women’s empowerment in the Nepalese society.
The findings of this study might be of great potential to policy makers, bureaucrats, women’s organizations, feminists and international agencies to devise new or alternative ways of strategies to bring women in equal footing with men and developing more democratic and just society in Nepal.
Keywords: Women’s Land Ownership, Women’s Right, Empowerment, Nepalese women, Nepal

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Abstract i
• Acknowledgements iii
• Acronyms iv
• Index of Figures v
• Chapter 1: Introduction 1
• Background of the Research 1
• Aims and Questions of the Research 5
• Research Methodology 6
• Contents of the Whole Chapters 8
• Empirical Literatures on Women’s Empowerment through Land Acquisitions 9
• Chapter 2: Women’s Status, Property Entitlement and Empowerment. 13
• Social Cultural Backgrounds of Suspended Women’s Land Property Rights 13
• Women’s Legal Property Rights and Remained Issues 16
• Linking of Land Entitlement with Empowerment 20
• Chapter 3: Land Entitlement, Education and Empowerment 25
• Enlightened Husband and Women’s Ownership on Land 25
• Investment of Land in Education 28
• Chapter 4: Land Entitlement, Autonomy and Empowerment 33
• Women’s Autonomy for the Use of Land 33
• Land Owned Women’s Household Decision Making Position 36
• Access to Investment and Management of Income 38
• Chapter 5: Concluding Remarks 43
• References 45
• Appendices 53