Women, custodianship and the land debate

Abstract

Since 1995, land reform in South Africa, and particularly land redistribution, has taken on various forms and guises. However, women remain largely excluded from the process as beneficiaries. Furthermore, when included as beneficiary household members, women have little say over land usage and disposal under a patriarchal system. Following repeated concerns about the pace of and mechanisms for of land redistribution, government introduced the Expropriation Bills of 2015 and 2020 in terms of which land may be expropriated without compensation.