Women’s Right to Property: An Enigmatic Cauldron of Growing Landlessness of Women across the Globe

Abstract

There is a rise in the participation of women in practically every economic area. The number of women who are leading houses and participating in the world's workforce formally is growing at an alarming rate. In spite of these tendencies, the percentage of land that is legally owned by women is a much lower percentage than that of males across the globe, and women are routinely denied the opportunity to ownership. There are a number of social, cultural, historical, political, and legal variables that contribute to the lack of property and inheritance rights that women have, and the precise patterns of ownership and disenfranchisement may vary greatly from place to place. If a woman does not have a formal title to land or property, for example, it is very difficult for her to acquire a loan or line of credit since she has no security to put up against the debt. This further results in women’s lower status and higher rates of poverty compared to men. This raises many inquiries such as 1. To what extent do women own property globally? 2. In what ways do societal and cultural norms prevent women from gaining access to, controlling, and owning land? 3. What legal, social, and political obstacles prevent women from acquiring, using, and/or reselling land? Therefore, the need of the hour is not just enacting strict laws and regulations but also making sure that these laws and regulations are put into force properly in order to increase women’s access to owning land. This article traces the intellectual waves and political and social factors that formed the difficult disputes over the basic right to property in India, the US, the UK, Islamic countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and several African countries and further discusses the barriers faced by women across the globe to in order to have access to the right to property and finally recommend a way forward.