Grassroots women have been applying a wide array of strategies to enforce and reform property laws. The Huairou Commission is working with grassroots women's groups and community-based organizations around the world to identify innovative on-the-ground strategies and practices that women are using to fight for women's rights to land and property at the local, national and international levels. These are just a few examples of strategies women are undertaking to increase women's access to and control over housing, land and property.
Eviction Watch Programs
Settlers work together to
form Eviction Watch Programs that protect family members, friends and neighbors
from eviction by local authorities. Lumanti Support Group for Shelter works to
improve living conditions of the urban poor in Nepal and organizes eviction
watch programs in urban areas where settlers are threatened with eviction.
Co-Operatives
Zimbabwe National Association of
Housing Cooperatives mobilizes low-income community members to build and
maintain affordable housing cooperatives. Members pool their skills and
resources to increase thei purchasing power, advocate and lobby for affordable
financial resources, and acquire affordable building materials.
Savings and Credit Cooperatives
Pragati Mahila
Uthan Saving & Credit Cooperative represents squatter women of the Kathmandu
Municipality in Nepal and is working to reduce women’s dependency on
moneylenders. The cooperative provides women with access to and control over
financial resources and more than 350 members have taken loans for various
income generating activities.
Training Programs Foster
Micro-enterprises
Estrategia, based in Lima, Peru, defends women’s
land tenure rights, especially in informal settlements, and has administered
trainings to women’s groups to produce building materials out of concrete
including blocks, roofs, steps, beams and paving stones. Following these
trainings, women started their own micro-enterprises, selling building materials
to other neighborhoods in Lima. These enterprises created work opportunities and
enabled women and men to build decent housing and community facilities.
Lobbying & Advocacy
The Uganda Land Alliance
lobbies and advocates for women's land rights and co-ownership of family land;
issues for inclusion in the National Land Policy; amendments of specific
sections of the Land Act 1998; and reform/revision of other legislation on land
to conform with the Land Act.
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