Sisters win long battle against their brothers to inherit father’s land

Six married sisters who won a landmark inheritance case against their brothers have received title deeds for part of the 42-acre land left behind by their father.

On Friday, officials from the Ministry of Land gave the sisters -- Rachel Korir, 72, Alice Korir, 70, Sarah Rotich, 74, Elizabeth Sang, 64, and Esther Korir, 62 -- title deeds showing that they will each own five acres of the land.

The sisters from Cheborgei village in Bureti sang and danced on their way to receive the deeds from Pauline Muriithia, the deputy lands registrar. The six are all grandmothers. 

The occasion was witnessed by a group of women rights crusaders from across the country. 

The 42-acre piece of land belonged to their father Joel Korir, who died in 2012. 

Their two brothers Samwel Kiplang’at, 77, and Joshua Kiprono Cheruyot, 68, had challenged their sisters’ right to inherit the land. They will now share the remaining 12 acres between them.

On July 24 last year, Justice Mumbi Ngugi ruled that the six sisters had a right to inherit the property.

“Until today, I did not have any space to build a house or to plant food crops to feed my family. Words cannot express my joy after the government issued me with a title deed,” said Rachael Korir, who filed the suit.

The mother of eight said she filed the case after elders sat more than 20 times but could not convince her brothers to allow her to inherit her father’s land.

Men controlled

“I did not move to court because I was forced to. The elders did not help. I had asked for my brothers to only allow me to settle on an half acre piece on the land but they flatly refused,” she said. 

Rachael separated from her husband in 1984.

The journey to winning her share of the inheritance was not an easy one for Rachel.

There was a time the court file went missing for six months. The frustration I got nearly forced me to take my life,” she said.

But just as she was about to give up, she met Naomi Lanoi who works with the Kenya Land Alliance (KLA).

“The officers from KLA told me that I would not die before I get justice. They pursued the case and got a favourable judgement,” she says.

Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) Chief Executive Officer Odenda Lumumba said they intervened in the case to advance socio-economic rights and wellbeing of women and their position in society.

“KLA came to the assistance of the six sisters because access, control and ownership of land in Kenya largely remains the domain of men, entrenching patriarchal structures of power and control over community resources, history, culture and tradition,” he said. 

Lands Cabinet Secretary Faridah Karoney, in a speech read on her behalf by Ms Muriithia, celebrated the brave steps made by the sisters in demanding for their right to own, control and use land as a resource. 

“The land laws particularly the Land Registration Act, the Land Act and the Community Land Act and respective regulations and rules formulated have provided for space for women in transaction to do with land,” she said. 

“This will go a long way to improve the economic wellbeing of many households,” she said. 

Customary practises

The case of the six sisters reflects a system of indigenous customary practices in many counties which allow men control to their parents’ property.

According to KLA’s Naomi Lanoi, even where land reform provides gender equality, implementation was slow and biased towards men. 

“The lack of serious attention to gender equality reinforces the marginalised position of women and undermines efforts to improve women’s land rights,” she said. 

“There is need for collective effort to engage with customary traditional institutions in order to deconstruct and re-conceptualise traditional notions of land access, control and ownership,” said Josephine Mongare, the Fida chairperson.