The impact of cultural practices on the advancement of women in Africa: a study of Swaziland and South Africa

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Leiden, 2005. / Title from e-book title screen (viewed Aug. 10, 2009). Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2009. / Title from title page (Digital Archive@GSU, viewed July 20, 2010) Michael Herb, committee chair; Jelena Subotic, Scott Graves, committee members. Includes bibliographical references.

The title of this thesis is: The Customary Law of Intestate Succession. The African customary law relating to intestate succession has always been known to discriminate against women. The thesis therefore focuses on the customary law of intestate succession in the countries of South Africa, Ghana and Swaziland and the inroads they have made in improving the rights of women in this discriminatory field of African customary law. This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the topic of the research. It highlights the organisation of the intended research which comprises: a statement of the problem, the legal framework, research methodology and a summary of the chapter. Chapter 2 defines the general terms and concepts used in the customary law of intestate succession. This facilitates an understanding of the general principles comprising the body of law known as the customary law of intestate succession and lays the foundation for the country specific issues that are investigated in the following chapters. Chapter 3 discusses the recognition, application and development of the customary law of intestate succession in the country of South Africa. Chapter 4 considers the rules and laws of the customary law of intestate succession in the West African country of Ghana. Chapter 5 explains the current rules and laws of the customary law of intestate succession prevailing in the Kingdom of Swaziland. Finally, chapter 6 brings the thesis to a meaningful end, by criticizing the approaches adopted by the countries of South Africa, Ghana and Swaziland in improving the rights of women as far as the customary law of intestate succession is concerned. The chapter also presents various recommendations for improving the rights of women in this discriminatory field of the law. / Public, Constitutional, & International / LL.D.

The title of this thesis is: The Customary Law of Intestate Succession. The African customary law relating to intestate succession has always been known to discriminate against women. The thesis therefore focuses on the customary law of intestate succession in the countries of South Africa, Ghana and Swaziland and the inroads they have made in improving the rights of women in this discriminatory field of African customary law. This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the topic of the research. It highlights the organisation of the intended research which comprises: a statement of the problem, the legal framework, research methodology and a summary of the chapter. Chapter 2 defines the general terms and concepts used in the customary law of intestate succession. This facilitates an understanding of the general principles comprising the body of law known as the customary law of intestate succession and lays the foundation for the country specific issues that are investigated in the following chapters. Chapter 3 discusses the recognition, application and development of the customary law of intestate succession in the country of South Africa. Chapter 4 considers the rules and laws of the customary law of intestate succession in the West African country of Ghana. Chapter 5 explains the current rules and laws of the customary law of intestate succession prevailing in the Kingdom of Swaziland. Finally, chapter 6 brings the thesis to a meaningful end, by criticizing the approaches adopted by the countries of South Africa, Ghana and Swaziland in improving the rights of women as far as the customary law of intestate succession is concerned. The chapter also presents various recommendations for improving the rights of women in this discriminatory field of the law. / Public, Constitutional, and International / LL. D.

This study offers a concentrated view of how a national movement developed networks from the grassroots up and how regional identity can influence national campaign strategies by examining the roles Texas and Texans played in the woman suffrage movement in the United States. The interest that multiple generations of national woman suffrage leaders showed in Texas, from Reconstruction through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, provides new insights into the reciprocal nature of national movements. Increasingly, from 1868 to 1920, a bilateral flow of resources existed between national women's rights leaders and woman suffrage activists in Texas. Additionally, this study nationalizes the woman suffrage movement earlier than previously thought. Cross-regional woman suffrage activity has been marginalized by the belief that campaigning in the South did not exist or had not connected with the national associations until the 1890s. This closer examination provides a different view. Early woman's rights leaders aimed at a nationwide movement from the beginning. This national goal included the South, and woman suffrage interest soon spread to the region. One of the major factors in this relationship was that the primarily northeastern-based national leadership desperately needed southern support to aid in their larger goals. Texas' ability to conform and make the congruity politically successful eventually helped the state become one of NAWSA's few southern stars. National leaders believed the state was of strategic importance because Texas activists continuously told them so by emphasizing their promotion of women's rights. Tremendously adding credibility to these claims was the sheer number of times Texas legislators introduced woman suffrage resolutions over the course of more than fifty years. This happened during at least thirteen sessions of the Texas legislature, including two of the three post-Civil War constitutional conventions. This larger pattern of interdependency often culminated in both sides-the Texas and national organizations-believing that the other was necessary for successful campaigning at the state, regional, and national levels.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Developmental initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa emphasise participatory citizenship as the means through which poor women can assert and claim their citizenship rights. Although citizenship and agency are crucial elements in this narrative, little is known about the citizenship process for African women. Furthermore, there is no analytic framework to guide an empirical analysis of agency. This dissertation aims to address these gaps by examining how marginalised Black African women understand themselves as citizens, navigate their structural barriers and develop strategies to negotiate their membership in and relationship with their states. This dissertation uses a deviant case analysis of women living in Zimbabwean and South African townships, who identify as members of the isiNdebele and isiZulu ethnic groups respectively, to Western theories of agency. Data was collected through the use of in-depth interviews and analysed using content and relational analysis. Results indicate that the women use a range of everyday resistance strategies to negotiate their relationship with their states. These strategies are mapped onto an innovative analytic framework that synthesizes feminist, androcentric and subaltern theories of citizenship agency, in order to highlight the non-conventional ways that marginalised African women exercise their agency as citizens. Interestingly, both sets of women emphasise the obligation to vote, work and support oneself without recourse to the state, rather than a reciprocal and participatory relationship. The internalisation of citizenship as an obligation without a corollary emphasis on rights and participation is problematic given that both governments suffer from legitimacy, corruption and governance issues. The main policy implication arising from the study is that there is a need for civic education in schools as well as a feature of women‟s empowerment and community development programs so that marginalised African women are encouraged to expand their participatory skills to collectively challenge, contest and improve the substance of existing citizenship rights. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ontwikkelinginisiatiewe in Afrika beklemtoon deelnemende burgerskap as ʼn manier hoe arm vroue hul regte kan eis. Hoewel burgerskap en die agentskap (agency) belangrik in hierdie verhaal is, weet ons baie min oor hoe swart vroue burgerskap ervaar. Verder is daar geen analitiese raamwerk om 'n empiriese ontleding van hul agentskap te lei nie. Die proefskrif spreek hierdie gapings aan deur ʼn ondersoek oor hoe arm swart vroue in Afrika hulself as burgers verstaan, hoe hul strukturele hindernisse navigeer en strategieë ontwikkel om hul lidmaatskap van en verhouding tot die staat te onderhandel. Hierdie proefskrif gebruik ʼn vergelykende gevallestudie benadering wat vroue wat in Zimbabwe en Suid-Afrika in “townships” woon en wat hulself as isiNdebele en isiZulu identifiseer na te vors. Data is verkry deur die gebruik van in-diepte onderhoude, inhouds- en verwantskapsanalise. Die resultate dui aan dat vroue ʼn reeks strategieë gebruik vir “daaglikse weerstand” om hul verhouding met die staat te onderhandel. Hierdie strategieë word gekarteer op die innoverende analitiese raamwerk, wat ʼn sintese is van feministiese, androsentriese en subalterne teorieë van burgerskap, om sodoende die nie-konvensionele maniere waarop swart vroue hul agentskap uitoefen te beklemtoon. Beide groepe vroue beklemtoon die verpligting om te stem, werk en om jouself te onderhou sonder hulp van die staat, eerder as om ʼn wederkerige en deelnemende verhouding met die staat te beoefen. Die internalisering van burgerskap as ʼn verpligting sonder die wederkerige nadruk op regte en deelname is problematies. Dit kan gekoppel word aan die feit dat albei regerings gebuk gaan onder legitimiteitsprobleme, korrupsie en probleme rondom regeerkunde, wat vrae genereer oor hoe om hierdie regerings verantwoordbaar te hou. Die hoof beleidsimplikasie van hierdie studie is die daarstelling van burgerlike onderwys in skole, sowel as vroue se bemagtiging in ontwikkelingsprogramme. Dit sal bydra daartoe dat gemarginaliseerde swart vroue aangemoedig word om hul vaardighede rondom deelname te ontwikkel en die substansie van hul bestaande burgerskap kollektief uit te daag en te verbeter.

Texas law regarding the legal status of women and their property rights developed from the mingling of Spanish and English laws. Spanish laws regarding the protection of women's rights developed during the centuries-long Reconquest, when the Spanish Christians slowly took back the Iberian Peninsula from the Moorish conquerors. Women were of special importance to the expansion of Spanish civilization. Later, when Spain conquered and colonized the New World, these rights for women came, too. In the New World, women's rights under Spanish law remained the same as in Spain. Again, the Spanish were spreading their civilization across frontiers and women needed protection. When the Spanish moved into Texas, they brought their laws with them yet again. Archival evidence demonstrates that Spanish laws in early Texas remained essentially unchanged with regard to the status of women. Events in the history of England caused its legal system to develop in a different manner from Spain's. In England, the protection of property was the law's most important goal. With the growth of English common law, husbands gained the right to control their wives's lives in that married women lost all legal identity. When the English legal system crossed the Atlantic and took root in the United States, little changed, especially in the southern states, when migrants from there entered Texas. When these Anglo-American colonists came into contact with Spanish/Mexican laws, they tended to prefer the legal system they knew best. Accordingly, with the creation of the Republic of Texas, and later the state of Texas, most laws derived from English common law. From Spanish laws, legislators adopted only those that dealt with the protection of women, developed on the Spanish frontier, because they were so much more suitable to life in Texas. Later lawmakers and judges used these same laws to protect the family's property from creditors, as well as to advance the legal status of women in Texas.

There have been a number of legal reforms in Bolivia since the first indigenous president, Evo Morales, came to power in 2006. In 2009 a New Constitution was enacted which included rights for women and expanded legal recognition of indigenous groups. In 2013, in order to address rising rates of violence against women, Law 348 to Guarantee Women a Life Free from Violence was established. Yet what meaning these legal changes have for Bolivian women is still unknown. This thesis explores Bolivian women's legal consciousness and subjectivities in the context of these changes, particularly in relation to law concerning violence. Twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, between October 2014 and October 2015. Participant observation in a women's centre was the main field site, which offered the opportunities to gather women's life stories and explore women's narratives of the law. This was further supplemented with interviews with Civil Society Organisations and government in order to add different perspectives and further map the social structures of society that both constrain and enable meaning-making. This socio-legal ethnography presents women's engagements with the law, and offers insights into women's lived experiences of accessing justice and claiming rights, both directly and indirectly, as well as the influence that legality has on women's legal subjectivity and their sense of self. Doing so provides a narrative of Bolivian women's legal consciousness and reveals the meaning that law has for women in their everyday lives. Law works to shape the way they view themselves and their experiences as they engage with the processes of accessing justice. It can be concluded that law is a meaningful yet often contradictory presence in Bolivian women's everyday lives.

Zhang, Jiayu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-147). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.iiii / Table of Contents --- p.viii / List of Abbreviations --- p.ix / List of Figures --- p.x / List of Tables --- p.x / Chapter Chapter I: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1. 1 --- What happened to China´ةs SRB? --- p.1 / Chapter 1. 2 --- Women´ةs Human Rights as important Human Rights --- p.3 / Chapter 1. 3 --- SRB and Women´ةs Rights --- p.6 / Chapter 1. 4 --- Research Purpose and Methods --- p.7 / Chapter 1. 5 --- Research Outline --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter II. --- The Particular Features in China´ةs SRB --- p.20 / Chapter 2. 1 --- The Regional Features in SRB --- p.20 / Chapter 2. 2 --- The Ethnic Features in SRB --- p.23 / Chapter 2. 3 --- The Features by Birth Order --- p.24 / Chapter Chapter III. --- The Causes of Imbalanced SRB --- p.26 / Chapter 3. 1 --- The Proximal Causes --- p.26 / Chapter 3. 2 --- The Fundamental Cause --- p.31 / What Encourage son preference in China? --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Cultural and Historical Factors --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Economic Factors --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Law and policy as a Structural Factor --- p.40 / Political Silence --- p.42 / Economic Subordination --- p.43 / Sexual Subordination --- p.48 / Birth Control --- p.50 / Chapter Chapter IV. --- The Consequences of Imbalanced SRB from a Human Rights Perspective --- p.58 / Human Rights Violation against Women in the SRB Issues --- p.59 / Chapter 4.1 --- Rights Violations Which Cause the Distorted SRB --- p.59 / Chapter 4.2 --- Rights Violations for Which the Abnormal SRB is a Cause --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Trafficking in Women --- p.70 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Sexual Crimes --- p.72 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Women´ةs Civil and Political Rights --- p.73 / Chapter Chapter V. --- Women´ةs Human Rights Mechanism and Domestic Measures Adopted to Control Abnormal SRB --- p.76 / Chapter 5.1 --- The International Human Rights Fundamental for Protecting Women's Human Rights --- p.77 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- International Human Rights Treaties --- p.77 / Charter of the United Nations --- p.77 / The ICCPR and the ICESCR --- p.79 / CEDAW --- p.80 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Monitoring Treaty Bodies and Monitoring Mechanism --- p.85 / Chapter 5.2 --- Domestic Laws and Policies Adopted by Chinese Government to Control the Abnormal SRB --- p.88 / What are the Chinese Government´ةs Responses to SRB issue? --- p.89 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Laws and Policies that Aim to Control Prenatal Sex Selection and Infanticide --- p.90 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Measures that Aim to Dilute Son Preference --- p.96 / Political Participation --- p.98 / Economic Situation --- p.100 / Provide Some Resolution to Women's Sexual Subordination --- p.107 / Extra-Legal Measures Government Used to Change Son Preference Culture --- p.109 / Chapter 5. 3 --- Implications and Suggestions --- p.113 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Forbidding Prenatal Sex Selection Can not Pull up the Roots --- p.115 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Gender-Equal Laws are Still Problematic --- p.115 / States Parties´ة Responsibilities and Legal Remedies --- p.116 / Equal Treatment vs. Special Protection --- p.118 / Other Problems in Domestic Law --- p.123 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Extra-legal Actions Failed to Touch Patriarchal Culture --- p.124 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Loose the Birth Control Policy --- p.127 / Chapter Chapter VI. --- Conclusion --- p.130 / Bibliography --- p.136 / List of Abbreviations / SRB: Sex Ratio at Birth / NPFPCC : National Population and Family Planning Commission of China / PFPCC: Population and Family Planning Commission of China / NPC: National People´ةs Congress / TAR: Tibet Autonomous Region / UDHR: Universal Declaration of Human Rights / ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights / "ICESCR: International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" / CEDAW: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women / List of Figures / "Figure 1-1: Sex Ratio at Birth in China, 1982-2005" / Figure 2-1: Overall SRB Tendency and Regional Differences in Chin / "Figure 2-2: SRB by Province in 1982, 1990, 2000, 2005" / "Figure 2-3: SRB by Birth Order, 1982-2005" / "Figure 3-1: SRB by Birth Order: South Korea, 1980-2001" / "Figure 3-2: SRB by Birth Order: China, 1982-2000" / List of Tables / Table 3-1: Investigation to parents' gender expectation to first birth child / "Table 4-1: Surplus Males, Aged 15-34, China" / "Table 5-1: Female Participation in Political Decision-making, 1995-2000" / "Table 5-2: Number of Female Student by Level of Regular School, 1998-2001"