•HCON 421 IH
Whereas access to and control over land, housing, and prop-
erty is one of the most critical factors in the overall
struggle for women’s equality in gender relations and em-
powerment, as it is essential to women’s daily survival,
economic security, and physical safety;
Whereas in many regions of the world, and particularly
throughout the African continent, land and housing have
traditionally been regulated by customary law under
which widowed women do not inherit land and housing
but are allowed to remain in the matrimonial home until
death or remarriage;
Whereas over the past several decades, this social safety net
has eroded drastically, creating a human rights crisis of
enormous magnitude;
Whereas, in some cases, religious law also plays a role in re-
stricting women’s right to inherit;
Whereas statutory laws in some African countries have super-
seded customary and religious laws restricting women’s
right to inherit, but nonetheless have had minimal impact
on actual practice;
Whereas the denial of inheritance rights to women devastates
the lives of millions of women who become completely
destitute upon the death of their husbands, when the
family of the deceased husband often takes immediate
possession of the land, housing, and property;
Whereas the result is not only extreme poverty for individual
women and their dependents, but a profound, negative
impact on the social and economic development of coun-
tries in Africa;
Whereas the HIV/AIDS pandemic has resulted in the expo-
nential growth in the number of young widows, orphaned
•HCON 421 IH
girls, and grandmothers becoming heads of households
and has led to the urgent need for secure inheritance
rights for women;
Whereas this phenomenon has been exacerbated by the hor-
rific conflicts that have gripped many African countries
in recent years, in the aftermath of which there is usually
an increase in female-headed households; and
Whereas the denial of inheritance rights also results in vio-
lence against women, both at the time when they are
forcibly dispossessed and after they become homeless:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that—
(1) greater attention should be paid to the
strong relationship between the denial of inheritance
rights to women and its negative impact on eco-
nomic development, particularly in Africa;
(2) when considering responses to the HIV/
AIDS epidemic, programs that focus sharply on en-
suring secure inheritance rights to widows and or-
phans of HIV/AIDS should be carefully considered;
(3) ensuring secure inheritance rights for
women should be included in strategies addressing
the issue of violence against women;
(4) in post-conflict and reconstruction situa-
tions, the rights of widows and other female heads
•HCON 421 IH
of households to inherit land and property should be
included in the priorities of reconstruction;
(5) the Secretary of State should examine the
issue of women’s inheritance rights in Africa in the
annual human rights report of the Department of
State;
(6) the United States Agency for International
Development should consider conducting a study of
African countries in order to document and establish
the effect of the denial of women’s inheritance rights
on economic development of those countries; and
(7) the Annual Day of Action on Women’s In-
heritance Rights, initiated in 1999 by the Inter-
national Human Rights Law Group and imple-
mented over the past three years by nongovern-
mental organizations throughout many countries in
Africa, should be acknowledged and supported.
Æ