In Jharkhand, eastern India, women are not entitled to own land and accusations of witchcraft are wielded against them to silence their claims to land.
On International Women’s Day, Shipra Deo explains that when it comes to land ownership, India’s culture & practices have always been discriminatory to women. But, women in tribal society are doubly disadvantaged—first as women & second as tribal women.
Landesa is monitoring the ongoing situation in Myanmar, where the military has declared a state of emergency and assumed control of the government.
Land degradation neutrality is daunting, but not impossible. And often the solutions are simple, even if the implementation is challenging: protect forests and land, and the people stewarding them.
Landesa’s Karol Boudreaux was interviewed by CGTN’s Closer To China in a half-hour segment about challenges and progress in women’s land rights in rural China.
China Daily highlights several LUI Che Woo Prize laureates for their contributions to global food security, including Landesa’s law and policy work to strengthen rights to land – the foundation of agriculture and rural life.
Landesa’s Shipra Deo examines how rituals and customs in India uphold patriarchal norms that systematically deprive women and girls of joys in life.
The ideal of a married woman decorated with sindoor, sakha, and bichiya is romanticized through legend and folklore; steeped in this culture, women themselves see value in these rituals. Millions of women in India do not even imagine that these discriminatory and patriarchal rituals are not supernaturally ordained and blind them to the reality that the revered status given to suhagins causes untold suffering to any woman (widow) who does not fit the ideal.
असलीभारत (Real India) published an article by Manisha Ahlawat about the gender gap in land ownership in India, and how land ownership is tied to social and economic power.
Learn more about Sudipta Biswas, Landesa Program Manager based in our Kolkata, India office.