Women, Land and Justice in Tanzania
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Author(s): Helen Dancer
Date: 2021
Topics: Gender, Land
On the fertile lower slopes of Tanzania's second highest mountain, bounded by narrow mud pathways and bougainvillea hedgerows, there is a shamba. Over the years, banana trees, maize, beans and vegetables have been cultivated on this small parcel of land by successive generations of a family. The shamba lies surrounded by others just like it in the tranquillity of an Arusha mountain village. Yet on closer inspection it is noticeable that many of the banana trees have been deliberately slashed. Nothing remains of a woman's house that once stood there. The shamba, it turns out, is the setting of an extraordinary legal battle in which a woman farmer claimed that her land was sold by her husband without her consent. There is a notice nailed to a tree – a temporary High Court injunction restraining the husband and his agents from damaging the shamba or doing anything to prejudice the woman's interest in it whilst the court proceedings are ongoing.