Property 'grabbing' from widows continues.Many widows and their children in Namibia and elsewhere in Africa continue to be victims of the practice of 'property grabbing' by some of their husband's relatives. This was acknowledged by traditional and community leaders during a three-day seminar on property, inheritance rights, gender and livelihood strategies in Namibia conducted in Ondangwa in June. Participants at the seminar said there was ample evidence that HIV/Aids, land and property grabbing, eviction The removal of a tenant from possession of premises in which he or she resides or has a property interest done by a landlord either by reentry upon the premises or through a court action. from homesteads and gender inequality were closely linked and deprived women and children of access to shelter, food and other means of making a livelihood. Facilitators revealed to seminar participants that an HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. and Aids impact study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO FAO, n See Food and Agriculture Organization. ), conducted in the Ohangwena Region Ohangwena is one of the thirteen regions of Namibia. The northern and western parts of the region are the most densely populated of this essentially subsistence agricultural region in which small scale mahangu cultivation and the keeping of cattle form the predominant activities. in 2002, found that widows and orphans In typesetting, widow refers to the final line of a paragraph that falls at the top the following page of text, separated from the remainder of the paragraph on the previous page. The term can also be used to refer simply to an uncomfortably short (e.g. had lost vast amounts of livestock, farm equipment and other movable property to the deceased husband's family. It was learnt that there was a general lack of awareness of the Married Person's Equality Act of 1996. According to the FAO Representative in Namibia, Moeketsi Mokati, "Deliberations clearly indicated the need to review customary practices vis-a-vis the supreme law of Namibia in relation to inheritance of property." Source: The Namibian, 16 June 2004 |
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