Owning Land Has Offered me a Taste of Good Life
November 2023
Moraa Obiria (The Nation)
This open access online article published by the East African newspaper, The Nation, was first published in September 2023 and then updated in November 2023. The article features the story of a Tanzanian woman Maasai pastoralist who in 2020 received a rightful ownership certificate for 20 acres of land that her husband had allocated to her. The article recounts the transformative impact this has had on her life. She has been able to farm 5 acres herself with maize and sunflowers and rents out the rest for income. She has also accumulated 70 cows and 50 goats and sheep, and has been able to acquire a bank loan to build a three-bedroom brick house that provides better shelter from heavy rainfall than her previous mud house. The article also reports on the situation around land rights for women from other indigenous communities, in Tanzania and elsewhere, and was produced with support from Journalists for Human Rights.