Access to Land - Benin

BENIN: ACCESS TO LAND

At the end of a national diagnosis of the gender situation in Benin, focused not only on the gaps as they are observed but also on access to resources, their control and the management of their benefits, it revealed that women suffer from several inequalities, including access to land. The phenomenon is much more accentuated in rural areas where gender equality is still far from unanimous.

Land rights are expressed in particular by use (the right to exploit the land for our needs), control (the right to decide on the management of the land and the fruits of its exploitation) and transfer (the right sale, reassignment or redistribution of rights to use and control land from one person to another). The modes of access identified are inheritance, purchase, donation, rental and loan. Excluded from the land inheritance of their husbands and/or their male ascendants, and faced with insufficient financial means, Beninese women are clearly disadvantaged in access to land. In 2011, the integrated modular survey on household living conditions revealed that 85.1% of plot owners are men (against 14.9% women) and only 12% of women have access to land by inheritance (against 88 % men).

According to Me Huguette BOKPË GNANCADJA, Benin Wildaf coordinator, ignorance of the laws and the absence of concrete implementation of the legislation in this area are what most favors this discrimination.

In Benin, despite numerous awareness campaigns and the existence of several laws on the subject, women remain victims of discrimination, particularly in terms of access to land. In Cotonou, many women own plots bought with the sweat of their brow, and sometimes inherited from their parents. to guarantee women their right to dispose of the land that belongs to them.

In the fight for women's access to land, we find in the front line the Wildaf Benin network and the Konrad Adenauer foundation, which regularly organize awareness sessions on the need to banish injustices against women, including the weak access to land.

Advocacy is planned for traditional chiefdoms, the bearers of our customs, for the relaxation of conditions favoring women's access to land.