African widows left destitute by relatives snatching property

When Tamara Zulu's husband died, leaving her as the sole breadwinner, she turned to her skills as a tailor to support her five children.

Then came Ms. Zulu's in-laws.

A month after the funeral, relying on tribal traditions that assign inheritance rights to relatives of deceased men, the out-of-towners swooped in and took everything, including Zulu's only sewing machine. The suddenly destitute widow scrambled to rent tailoring equipment and feed her family.

"They don't even write or ask about the children," says the Livingstone resident. "They don't help you educate the children. So I have to struggle on my own."

The tradition of "property-grabbing" has benign roots: Widows and children were once absorbed by a man's family along with his property. These days, however, with 80 percent of Zambians living on less than $1 a day, the in-laws usually just want the goods. Now this vestige of patriarchal society is illegal - nominally, at least - in most countries.

But as AIDS ravages much of sub-Sarahan Africa, opportunities have grown for illegal property taking. Experts say that unless governments get a handle on the age-old custom, it will continue to feed the cycle of poverty here, as widows and children are left not only without their main provider but also with little of the material support they may have had.

"For children, it's a double tragedy. It means orphans lose parents but also are deprived of the means of survival," says Muna Ndulo, a Zambian legal expert and professor at Cornell University Law School in Ithaca, N.Y.

Preventing the loss of orphans' inheritances is particularly urgent in Zambia, where 17.6 percent of children have lost at least one parent, the highest rate in the world. By 2005, 1 in 5 Zambian children will be parentless, largely due to AIDS.

Statistics on property-grabbing are spotty, but the trend is clear. The US State Department called property-grabbing in Zambia rampant in a 2001 human rights report. Nearly 30 percent of Ugandan widows are stripped of property, the United Nations found. And in March, Human Rights Watch, an independent monitoring group, implored the Kenyan government to end widespread property-rights violations there.

In Zambia, both domestic and international statutes outlaw property-grabbing. A 1989 Zambian law forbids the practice, and as a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and signed by more than 170 countries - the government is bound to prevent gender discrimination.

But ancient custom often trumps modern law here, especially as the cash-strapped Zambian government lacks the ability - and, some women's groups say, the will - to enforce its mandates. Confusion surrounding the jurisdiction in property-grabbing cases is a problem as well.

The Zambian legal system integrates both African and European legal procedures. While the Zambian Constitution declares gender discrimination illegal, it also holds an exception for matters usually handled by customary law.

Because most Zambians still marry under customary law, which is generally less favorable to the rights of women and children, women who seek relief from property-grabbing in customary courts usually leave empty-handed.

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