Women’s Land Rights and Gender Justice
An ILC Global learning exchange, June 24 – 29, 2024
Sewing Knowledge and Resistance is the second edition of a series of exchanges conducted by ILC. In its first edition, held in Arusha, Tanzania, women from people's organizations from more than 12 countries of the ILC network were trained in Gender Transformative Approaches, and learned from the experience of Maasai women engaging men as advocates for women's land rights and forging alliances with local governments.
In 2024, this exchange represents a milestone for ILC, uniting over 40 women from grassroots organizations from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and EMENA region to learn about concrete actions that pave the way for the advancement of women's land rights. This includes a close look at the successful initiatives spearheaded by the Colombian National Coalition of Caribbean Women for Land and Territory safeguard their territories, the application of the Gender Transformative Approach (GTA), the S4HL campaign, and ILC's Gender Justice cross-cutting pledge and Action Plan.
Women’s organizations are agents of change and this learning is aimed to position gender transformative agendas at the heart of National Land Coalitions. By doing so, their advocacy efforts are boosted, ensuring they are more effective and impactful in promoting gender equality in land rights.
40+
women from grassroots organizations
5
Field Visits
Asociación de víctimas de San Joaquín y Songó
- Corregimiento de San Joaquín, municipio de Mahates
ASOVISANSO is an organization of victims dedicated to the defense and enforcement of their rights as women, for access to and use of the land, to a world free of violence, to remain in the territory and as victims of the armed conflict.
They recognise themselves as peasant women, and grow different types of vegetables and medicinal plants in their productive backyards. Together they face the challenges of working on their plots (land of sufficient quality and quantity) and develop strategies to secure food sovereignty and food security for their families, as well as the recovery and conservation of native seeds.
Asociación Femenina y Agropecuaria de San Cayetano
- Corregimiento de San Cayetano, municipality of San Juan Nepomuceno
AFASAN is an organisation of peasant women who collectively own the Santa Fe farm, where they work in both production and ecosystem conservation. Together they exercise both ownership and defence of their relationship with the territory and a life free of violence.
However, they face great challenges as a result of social norms and behaviours that reveal the persistence of beliefs about women's inferiority, the subordinate place they should occupy in society, and their inability to work and decide about the land, economic resources and even their own bodies.
This situation has strengthened them as an organisation, and their case has become emblematic of the defence of the land.
Asociación de Mujeres Indígenas Zenú
- Corregimiento Primero de Julio, municipio María La Baja
ASOMIZ is an organisation of indigenous women, who initially gathered together as victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, after being displaced and resettled in the Montes de María. They are currently dedicated to the preservation of historical memory and culture, the protection and conservation of medicinal plant crops, to gastronomy, and to textile weaving with vegetable fibres. Through handicrafts and the production of different oils extracted from medicinal plants, they ensure the economic autonomy of themselves and their families.
Asociación de Mujeres Víctimas Afro, Agropecuarias y Campesinas Productoras de Playón
- Corregimiento San José del Playón, municipio María La Baja
ASOMOVICAMPO is an organisation of women who are fighting for the defence and enforceability of their rights to access to land and to remain in their territory; the prevention of gender-based violence; and economic autonomy.
The women in this process are farmers, beekeepers, and seed custodians. While the older women work on a 15-hectare plot of land near the town centre, the others work on a rented parcel of land. To get there, they have to sail across the San José de Playón reservoir and then walk along one of the foothills of the Montes de María. They grow rice, yams, melon, corn and dozens of other products that they sell and use for their own consumption.
This territory is surrounded by oil palm monoculture and faces a serious problem associated with the availability of water resources, which has been contaminated by large companies and agribusiness, thus impacting the environment and the health of those who live in the region.
- Municipio La Apartada
Around 180 families - many of them displaced from other municipalities - make up the cabildo, maintaining their own government and fighting for autonomy in their territory. The cabildo has achieved the titling of two plots of land where the tambo, an ancestral place where they meet for dialogue and work, is currently located.
For 25 years now, the cabildo has been struggling to obtain state recognition as an indigenous reservation, thus achieving the adjudication of collective land in order to be able to enjoy the territory and carry out their life plan. The presence of illegal armed groups in the area slows down recognition, distancing them from the institutions in the territory and contributing to the stigmatization of those who live there.
Women's leadership has been crucial for the cabildo, leading fights against various conflicts and issues, including sexual violence against them.
Willet is from Liberia, in west Africa. She works at the Women NGOs Secretariat of Liberia - WONGOSOL.
She believes that achieving gender justice requires not only collaborating with the government and authorities on land issues, but also identifying and partnering with grassroots women's organizations in the territory to advocate for women's land rights.
Miriam is a rural producer and is a member of the organisation Mujeres Libres del Norte Cordobés - MULINEC, in Córdoba, Argentina.
She is confident that dialogue and intergenerational action can make possible further progress in the fight for women's land rights.
"We dream of a world free of violence against women, being recognised in our work in the territory and enjoying autonomy and self-determination in our land with guarantees for a dignified permanence".
The axes of their work agenda are redistribution, access, formalisation and tenure of land, life free from violence, common goods, food sovereignty and working together with the men who are part of their families, organisations and communities.
The Coalition was born out of the local adaptation of the Stand For Her Land campaign, a global initiative that seeks to contribute to the guarantee of rural women's rights and the closing of gaps between existing standards to promote women's land rights and their realisation in practice.
