Apartheid, gender and property relations in South Africa: Some reflections from Rahube v Rahube & Others
Posted: 20 August, 2018 Filed under: Kennedy Kariseb, Nimrod Muhumuza | Tags: apartheid-era laws, black women, customary law, Group Areas Act, Land reform, ownership, post-apartheid, property ownership, Rahube judgment, Rahube v Rahube & Others, South Africa Leave a commentAuthors: Kennedy Kariseb & Nimrod Muhumuza
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| Kennedy Kariseb | Nimrod Muhumuza |
Land reform is a litmus test for how far post-apartheid democratic South Africa is willing to go to redress its abhorrent racist and sexist history. There have been several attempts to reconcile colonial and apartheid-era laws with their concomitant rights and obligations in the new democratic dispensation, epitomised by the transformative 1996 Constitution. The latest proposal is to expropriate land without compensation which is currently undergoing public consultation. However, scant attention has been paid to the gendered land relations that have excluded women from owning land in their own name.
The recent judgment of Kollapen J in Rahube v Rahube & Others,[1] is one such case that indicates the difficulty of reconciling the impact of a skewed racial, gendered history in a new democratic dispensation premised in a supposedly transformative constitutional regime.[2] The Rahube judgment is another (rather unfortunate) reminder of the subordinate position that women occupy in South Africa, as in most parts of Africa, reminding us that inasmuch as land and property relations in South Africa were racially anchored, they were, (and still are) thoroughly gendered. This is because for the most part, colonial and apartheid laws and practices limited, and at worst excluded women from accessing and controlling resources such as property, including land.[3]
A deadly blow for women’s rights in Lesotho
Posted: 19 June, 2014 Filed under: Bamisaye Olawaye Oyetola | Tags: ACHPR, African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights, Basotho, CEDAW, chieftainship, constitution, Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, customary law, democracy, human rights, ICECSR, inheritance, International Covenant on Economic, International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, Kingdom of Lesotho, Lesotho, women's rights 30 Comments
Author: Bamisaye Olawaye Oyetola
LLM Candidate, Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
This article is a result of field research in Lesotho conducted from 5-12 April 2014.
The Court of Appeal of Lesotho (apex court) gave a decision that will make the hearts of all human rights defenders bleed. The decision is a setback to the fight for equality and for the recognition of women’s rights as human rights.
The case in question is that of SENATE GABASHEANE MASUPHA V. THE SENIOR RESIDENT MAGISTRATE FOR SUBORDINATE COURT OF BEREA & OTHERS. (SENATE’S CASE). The judgment was delivered on 17 April 2014.
The facts of the case in brief are; the appellant is the first daughter and only legal child of the deceased chief in Lesotho. Upon her father’s death, the mother assumed the chieftainship position of the deceased. And not too long, the mother passed on and the appellant sought to inherit the chieftainship of her father which devolved to her late mother, she was denied her right. Her half-brother from another woman who her father had not legally married will be entitled to the said title, based on the fact that women are not allowed to succeed their father with regards to chieftainship matters under the customary law of the Basotho people.
The appellant angered by this discriminatory practice, challenged it at the constitutional court but did not succeed; she appealed the decision at the apex court to enforce her right to chieftainship but also had no success.
