KYRGYZSTAN: Women face uphill battle for property rights
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32-year-old Bahtigul now sustains her family by selling pumpkins outside a local market in Bishkek |
BISHKEK, 19 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - Life took a dramatic turn for
32-year-old Bahtigul when her husband divorced her, leaving her with two small
children to raise alone. She now lives in a small two-room house and works at a
local food bazaar in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, to maintain her family.
“It's been three years since I got divorced and my husband banished me
from his home. But shouldn't I have any rights to some of his property and the
land that he cultivates?" she asked, with tears in her eyes.
While
gender discrimination has decreased in Kyrgyzstan when compared to other Central
Asian states, the rights of women, who make up 52 percent of the population, are
still violated given longstanding traditional stereotypes, activists say. Levels
of discrimination are particularly high in rural areas where 66 percent of the
country’s 5.1 million inhabitants live.
"It is very interesting that
women participate in many seminars and projects, but when it comes to political
power, financial resources and the distribution of land, women are not to be
seen,” Zamira Akbagysheva, President of the Congress of Women of Kyrgyzstan, a
prominent women's group, said recently.
In an effort to address just
that, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), in collaboration
with government bodies, civil societies and women NGOs, launched a unique
project entitled: “Women’s rights to land in Kyrgyzstan”, to enhance women’s
rights to economic resources including land, credit, inheritance and
property.
“The primary aim of our project is to strengthen the potential
of local NGOs and communities to work independently...it is a long-term project.
Even if the project stops, local NGOs and women’s organisations will continue to
work by themselves,” Asyl Jakieva, UNIFEM programme specialist, told IRIN in
Bishkek.
The project was initiated by the local NGO Women Entrepreneurs
Support Association (WESA) in 2002 following problems with land reform efforts
introduced by the government after an October 1998 referendum and the failure to
include women's rights in rural areas.
In the beginning, the project
offered only legal consultations, but following support by the Norwegian
government, began offering advice on economic development - women profiting from
land, gender expertise, gender budgeting, the participation of women in local
budget planning, monitoring of women’s rights for land, as well as an
information component involving TV, radio and print media.
"Problems
appear when there are divorces or other domestic disputes as most property deeds
are in the man's name as local people consider the male to be the dominant
figure of the family. As a result, women don't have anything in their names,"
Kaiyrgul Sadybakasova, head of WESA's legal sub-project, explained.
"Additionally, rural people - even rural administration officials - fail
to understand the procedures of agricultural land reform reform which poses a
huge problem as everyone interprets it differently," she said.
However,
according to Bakyt Kudaibergenov, the UNIFEM project’s agricultural land reform
consultant, relations with local administrative officials are getting better,
while four or five years earlier there was much resistance to their work.
"Today, people and local administrations wait for my visits as they
understand that I can provide them with real help," Kudaibergenov maintained.
"People of different occupations like leaders of local NGOs and communities, or
even students, apply for help about a large variety of issues such as land rent,
land property, and the use of pastures," he added.
With offices
throughout the country, the project provides free legal consultations.
Additionally, as part of an outreach effort, legal consultants from the project
offices organise trips to remote villages and areas to help people on a monthly
basis.
And while the project is aimed largely at helping women, men too
are welcome.
But although the initiative has achieved some success in
making several amendments to the country's land code, the majority of problems
remain, particularly with regard to contradictions between the country's land
code and civil law. As a result, land and property disputes can languish in the
court system for up to four years.
"For example, in the majority of
villages, the aksakal courts [local court of elders and prominent individuals]
do not work and even if they work, they tend to rule against women given
longstanding traditional stereotypes, while in the majority of official courts
there seems to be a bias against women which is why women sometimes ask us just
to attend the hearing for moral support," Sadybakasova added.
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