Liberia: Women Enjoying Ancestral Land Rights

Dec 10, 2024 | Contributing Author
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JORPOLU, Bong County – In the 1980s and 90s,  Annie Wehyee’s relatives did not allow her to make a farm on a plot of land in their father’s hometown of Dehyipa in the Sanniquellie-Mahn District of Nimba County.  Her brothers would root up her crops and say she had a land right. 

Fast-forward to 2018, the Land Rights Act was established, granting women equal access to customary land with men. Then Everything changed for the better.“The part [of the law] that makes me happy is that we have the right to own our property, especially land,” says Wehyee, now the Chief of Sehyi, one of the district’s clans. “Before then, women used to be men’s property but right now we are not men’s property. We can own our own properties,” Wehyee adds. She is from attending this year’s climate change summit in Azerbaijan, representing rural people.