By JOHN OYWA
The attackers struck three days after she buried her husband. They took away the title deed for a three-acre piece of land the couple owned in Busia County, and drove off in her husbandÂfs car.
When Mary Naliaka filed a case against her brothers-in-law with a local chief, citing her constitutional rights to inherit her husbandÂfs property, the clan rose against her.
The in-laws said a woman had no rights to take over her husbandÂfs wealth.
One week later in Nyamira County, a woman was hacked to death by her brother after they quarreled over the ownership of family land.
Emboldened by the new Constitution that allows women to inherit family land, the woman planted napier grass in a piece of land she believed was hers, but her brother uprooted it, saying she had no right over the land.
He taunted her, telling her to get married and demand land from her husband. Her mutilated body was later found dumped by the roadside in Amatierio village.
Cross-purposes
The above incidents, and several others that go unreported, are testimonies of how culture is at cross-purposes with the new Constitution.
Legal and socio-cultural experts warn land and property ownership rights may largely remain on paper as many communities cling to decades-old cultures that discriminate against women. They are barred from inheriting family land and property.
Even though they voted for the new laws, many men are opposed to certain provisions such as those giving women equal rights.
Before the promulgation of the new Constitution in 2010, Women land rights were governed by discriminatory customary practices and the Married WomenÂfs Property Act that was enacted in Eng land in 1882.
