By Dominic Kirui
KAPCHEBOI, Kenya, June 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A few months ago, the idea of coming home with a hoe in one hand and a sack of freshly harvested potatoes in the other was only a dream for Rachel Korir.
When her father died in 2012, his land in the village of Kapcheboi, in western Kenya, automatically went to his two sons, in line with the customary law of the Kipsigis tribe to which the family belongs.
Because Korir, now 70, and her five sisters were all married, tribal rules dictated that they were not entitled to any of their father’s land.
“Even when I tried to work for (my brothers) plucking tea on the farm for money, they refused to offer me the job and gave it to other people from the village,” said the mother of seven, sitting on a bench outside her small hut.
But in April, after a legal battle that lasted almost 20 years, Korir and her sisters got the title deeds to five acres (two hectares) of land each, in a case that land rights groups are calling a landmark victory for the women of Kenya’s indigenous tribes.
“This is a welcome ruling that allows not only women but married women for that matter to inherit their father’s land,” said Pauline Vata, executive director at Hakijamii, a Nairobi-based advocacy group fighting for social and economic justice.
Land ownership in Kenya is usually vested in fathers who customarily pass it on to their sons, making it hard for women to secure rights except through their husbands. Women and their children are often evicted if the husband dies or they divorce.
Women in the East African nation were allocated less than 2% of about 10 million hectares of land that was registered between 2013 and 2017, according to research by the Kenya Land Alliance, an advocacy network.
However, the country’s constitution states that all women have equal rights to own property, regardless of whether they are married or not, Vata noted.
“The case affirms what our laws have been saying all along,” she said.
Korir said ever since she and her sisters won the case, many women have come to her for advice on their own struggles to get a share of their families’ land.
But the ruling has divided tribes in parts of Kenya’s Rift Valley, with some people seeing it as a positive step toward equal access to land and others fearing it undermines the traditional laws that have guided generations.
