KARACHI: A seminar held to study the state of public land grantees comprising many previously landless peasant women, organised by the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) at their office here on Friday, brought up several issues faced by these women even after being awarded agriculture land.

“Thanks to the government, I now have two acres of land on which I grow rice,” said Bhana of Thatta. “But I don’t have the proof of ownership of this piece of land. I have no documents,” she said.

Sahiba, also from Thatta, said she was given four acres of land. “I grow wheat and rice on my land and I plan to grow tomato, too. But I face plenty of hurdles from getting seed, insecticides and loans for all that as I have no documents to prove ownership of the land I need all this for,” she said.

Meanwhile, Murad Khatoon from Badin said she was given 16 acres but she could not even step on the land as the zamindar won’t allow it.

Tahir Iqbal of the Legal Rights Forum explained that a piece of land was given to a peasant woman for 15 years and she must pay Rs100 every year for those 15 years to make it Rs1,500 after which she was presented the documents of that land she has been cultivating for 15 years. “But,” he said, “the flaw in this agreement is that there is no mechanism in place for the collection of this Rs100 per year. The women don’t know and are confused about where to make the payment or to whom,” he said.

“That could be very dangerous because not making regular payments means that the land they have now may be reverted to the government,” he said.

Iqbal also said though it was a great initiative on the part of the government to have distributed public land among peasant women, there were several cases of this having been done haphazardly. “Some households ended up with too much land as every woman in that family got a piece of land. So there is a need for proper research so that one piece of land goes to one household,” he said.

“Another issue is that when a peasant woman has land, she is not supplied water for irrigation through the tube well which is owned by the zamindar.”

Uroosa Khatti said many issues were being highlighted now after analysing the situation now following the giving of lands to the women. “At some places the land has not even been properly demarcated while at others there are issues coming up with the zamindar. These are illiterate women who, if they go into litigation, cannot really fight the cases on their own,” she said.

“There is also a need to look at the political will in carrying out the process. It should be a transparent procedure throughout,” she said, adding that decisions in several problematic cases were still pending with the government in the matter.

Babar Ayaz then pointed towards another aspect of the scheme like the importance of women’s economic empowerment. “When women start to earn, they also earn respect. Peasant women, who play a major role in our agriculture, deserve 50 per cent of the public land being distributed among the peasants,” he said.

“It is heart-warming to see all these women, who were never even included in major family decisions such as their own children’s marriages, being asked their opinion now after they have been given their own land,” he said.

Anis Haroon, NCHR’s member from Sindh, who was chairing the seminar, said that there was a need for an effective redress mechanism to be put in place by the government to resolve the issues of the public land grantees. She also said that the deserving peasants should be identified without any prejudices, keeping in view the poverty scorecard.

Finally, Erum Khalid, special assistant to the Chief Minister on Women’s Development, who was the guest of honour, said she and her party, the Pakistan People Party, carried a lot of respect for the peasants, especially women, as they were the ones doing most of the work. “They feed us through their agriculture. So land reforms were and still are the need of the times,” said.

About the Rs1,500 in 15 years payment after which comes the real ownership, she said that it was for the protection of the women themselves. “Here even if a woman owns a gold ring the men folk in her family want her to sell it. She won’t be able to sell this land if she doesn’t own it. And by the time she would have its ownership she would be too strong for anyone to push her in any direction,” she said.

“Of course, there will always be flaws whenever any new scheme is executed. We will resolve the issues as soon as we can.”

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2016