July 18, 2008
Workshop on Strengthening Women’s Rights to Land and Property Held in East Timor
On July 16, ACDI/VOCA and partner ARD Inc. organized a meeting of the Gender Land Law Working Group to further the East Timorese government’s efforts to address gender equality in forthcoming legislation on land and property. The focus of the workshop, which was held in Dili, was the issue of women’s rights to matrimonial property, which is property—including land—that is acquired before, during and after marriage. In Timorese culture when women are married, they generally do not have the right to own land.
“The majority of women in East Timor enter marriage with few assets, and have few opportunities to acquire personal assets during their marriage,” said Idelta Maria, the secretary of state for the promotion of equality.
“Because of this, developing a mechanism to strengthen land rights is critical to increasing women’s rights within the family and in particular the rights of women when it comes to the division of assets because of death, separation or divorce,” she added.
The five-year Strengthening Property Rights in East Timor program (known locally as the “Ita Nia Rai” or “Our Land”) is funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA and ARD Inc. Working with the National Directorate for Land, Property and Cadastral Services and the Ministry of Justice, the program provides technical and policy support to develop a sustainable and transparent property rights system in East Timor.
Strengthening women’s rights to land is a key goal for increasing women’s access to land and reducing rural poverty, especially for vulnerable women and their families. To this end, participants in the working group are developing concrete recommendations on how regulations on marital property can be adapted to the context of East Timor and how to manage them. At the meeting, participants also discussed key issues such as joint titling of land between husbands and wives.
East Timor is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and has committed to developing mechanisms to promote equality in access and control of land and property, including access to credit and capital. This is in line with the country’s constitution, which in Article 54 states that all Timorese citizens have the right to private property.
The working group intends to submit its recommendations to East Timor’s ministry of justice, council of ministers and the national parliament for consideration in legal frameworks regulating property rights, which are expected to be designed in coming months.
Working group members include government representatives from the Secretariat of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI), the Ministry of Justice, the National Directorate for Land, Property and Cadastral Services (DNTPSC), the Ministry of Agriculture, and local government representatives from Dili, representatives from civil society and international organizations including Fokupers, Rede Feto (the women’s network), the Justice Sector Monitoring Program (JSMP), the Hak Association, Belun, Advocats Sans Frontieres (ASF), the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNMIT) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
To learn more about ACDI/VOCA's work in the East Timor, click here.