Reasserting Women’s Human Rights to Land in Uganda: A Post-Structural Feminism Perspective
Abstract:This paper seeks to unravel the problem of denial of women’s human rights to land in Uganda using the post-structural feminism perspective. The paper adopts an historical perspective to lay a firm foundation for discussing the inhibitors to women’s realization of human rights to land. It analyses some of the United Nations human rights instruments, which recognize that all (women and men) are equal before the law and no one should be discriminated against based on any criteria such as sex or gender. It, therefore, establishes that women’s human rights to land are human rights, but that the ideology of patriarchy denies them the opportunity to realize and enjoy those rights. Using the post-structural feminism perspective, it establishes that women in Uganda are aware of the arenas that deny them their human rights to land and some of them have, through their agency attempted to resist the operations of the ideology of patriarchy and are now in involved in other decision-making arenas such as politics, which act as a stepping block for them to reassert and enjoy their human rights to land. It, equally establishes that the paradigm of universalization of human rights meets resistance from that of cultural relativism, which fronts a different view of human rights, namely that human rights must be understood from the perspective of a particular cultural set up and are not universal. The paper concludes with a call on women in Uganda to reassert their human rights to land, because there are able to do so having been enlightened by the post-structural feminism perspective, which unpacks the loci of oppression crafted within the ambit of the ideology of patriarchy.
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