Men have been advised and encouraged to always include the names of their wives while purchasing land and getting land titles so as to avert likely violence that may arise after.
Elizabeth Kemigisha, the Advocacy Manager at the he Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA Uganda), said that if all men include their spouses names on their properties, the level of domestic violence will substantively go down.
She said that land disputes have hugely contributed to domestic violences in majority of the homes.
She said it is common in homes where the marriage is not legal which denies a woman, a single say about the properties.
“As FIDA Uganda, we encourage men to always include the names of their spouses on the land titles and this will minimize these domestic violences in our homes,” she said
“Out of the 320 cases that were reported in our Luwero Offices, more than 50% are related to land matters in terms of ownership, inheritance among others,” she added.
Kemigisha made these remarks while speaking at the one day public dialogue on Land Ownership that was held at Kasana Luwero Primary School Playground on Wednesday.
She noted that vulnerable women in Luwero sub region are among the highly affected classes of people in issues concerning land ownership.
The engagement was organised by FIDA Uganda in collaboration with the Buganda Land Board (BLB).
Kemigisha said that one of the biggest challenges of Uganda’s landholding system arise from the existence of multiple tenures and various layers of rights on the same piece of land, coupled with the lack of documents of title to land for some people, especially those holding land under the customary land tenure system.
“For poor and vulnerable households, therefore, lack of secure land tenure propagates a vicious cycle of poverty without tenure, they have little incentive to invest in developing their land to improve its productivity and value,” she said adding,
“These households also tend to lack the skills, knowledge and access to capital necessary to improve productivity. As a result, over the generations, they fall further and further behind landowners who do have the means to improve their land, because improved productivity generates more income to fund more improvements,”
FIDA Uganda, she said has also noted that it is especially challenging for women not just in Luwero but all over the different regions to create wealth through land.
Speaking at the engagement, Bashir Kizito, the Head of Operations at BLB said that they are championing women to own land in Buganda region.
“And this has been done through various means including, inclusive land registration and acquisition of certificate of ownership,” he said
“Buganda Land Board has been involved in several initiatives aimed at improving the livelihoods of many Ugandans. One of the such initiatives includes the donation of land to Nansana municipality to enable Rotarians in partnership with the municipality to build a community hospital in the area. The community hospital which will be at a level of a health centre IV, to be built at Nakkuule. It is exciting for us to be partnering to contribute to Land Justice to communities in Luweero,” he said
In her speech read by Aisha from the her ministry, Hon Judith Nabakooba the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development asured locals that no one will evict no matter what.
“I am aware that this region has many Bibanja holders living in fear, fear of eviction of moved to use protective materials like stones digs bangers and witchcraft in cases of threatened evictions, including destroying their plantations against those who want to forcefully evict them from their ancestral land where they have lived all their lives,” she said adding.
“The Ministry of Land It’s while implementing the Presidential ban on evictions has initiated a number of measures to protect citizens from from forced land evictions unfortunately we find our does have become victims of landlords you Seeing usually through sale of titled land,”
