A version of this blog originally appeared on page 11 of the print edition of The Guardian Tanzania on June 23, 2025.
By Khadija Mrisho
“My husband passed on in 2006 and left me 8 children. Soon after the funeral my in-laws told me I couldn’t inherit my husbands’ assets because in Maasai tribe traditions, women do not inherit. I fought back, sometimes, I reported the matter to the police to arrest them for violating my rights. I also visited the village government for assistance. After a long struggle they agreed to let me have the land and other property. Now my children live on the land I inherited from their father; we have built a house, and we keep some livestock.”
Kijoolu Kakeya, from Lusoruti village, Loliondo district, Arusha
Kijoolu’s story relates with that of other widows worldwide who are approximated to number 258 million of the world’s population. Widows continue to experience exclusion, displacement, and denial of their inheritance rights—particularly land and property—partly due to deeply rooted customary norms, stereotypes and practices, legal pluralism, and lack of protection. Tanzania is no different, while widowed account for 4.7% of the country’s population, where women form the large number compared to men, the law allows for application of formal, Islamic, and customary laws on inheritance matters. The latter, when applied, often discriminates against widows, women, and daughters’ inheritance rights.
Tanzania’s customary laws for tribes following on patriarchal systems of inheritance are codified to form the Local Customary Law (Declaration) (No.4) Order 1967, which specifically excludes women from inheriting clan lands. It instead grants usufruct rights only. The law further states: widows do not have inheritance share but should be taken care by children, and daughters are considered the third category of inheritance after boys have received their shares, which is normally bigger compared to what is left for girls.
These provisions of the customary law are in contradiction with the provisions of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania 1977 as revised from time to time, on prohibition of discrimination based on gender as per article 13(4). There have been court decisions that declared the law as unconstitutional and discriminatory to women, particularly widows. However, the law continues to exist leading widows into destitution.
Noting that women’s rights are fundamental human rights, to ensure dignity, worth of human person, and equal rights of men and women, the United Nation’s state parties adopted and signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 1979, to ensure that women rights are recognized and protected on an equal basis with men. The treaty requires state parties to take measures to eliminate prejudices, customary and all other practices, which are based on ideas of inferiority or superiority of either sexes or on stereotype roles for men and women.
Equally, at the regional level, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, known as the Maputo Protocol, was adopted. It requires African governments to eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women in Africa and to promote equality between men and women.
These global and regional frameworks, to which Tanzania is part, necessitates countries to formulate policies, legislation, development plans, and strategies with a gender lens, including undertaking reforms on inheritance laws that discriminate women on basis of gender, for the overall well-being of women.
The newly launched National Land Policy of 1995, Version of 2023, quests to ensure gender equality in land rights and enhance land ownership and management systems to ensure equal access to land for all citizens, among others. It further recognizes that despite the stronger provisions in the previous National Land Policy, still women inheritance rights were subjected to cultural norms, customs, and traditions that often discriminated against them and favoured men over women particularly on inheritance of clan lands. The policy aims to put in place mechanisms to ensure equal access to land rights and guarantee that women have equal opportunities to access land rights. It also calls for continuous public awareness campaigns on gender equality in land and land use.
The new National Land Policy is thus a groundbreaking move to do away with discriminatory provisions in customary inheritance laws that bar widows and women from inheriting land. However, these policy provisions require legal backings to ensure they are operationalized. Thus, legal reforms on land and inheritance laws have to be undertaken to ensure legal protection of widows and women in the spirit of new policy.
On the ground, the Stand for Her Land (S4HL) Tanzania coalition is driving lasting change through collective action and advocacy by closing the implementation gap for women’s land rights: the bay between the strong frameworks in place to protect women’s rights to land, and the realization of those rights in practice.
S4HL Tanzania works to address entrenched discriminatory cultural norms and practices, and advocate for implementation of stronger legal provisions on women land rights. The coalition has done analysis, developed position papers, and made recommendations for stronger legal provisions that safeguard the rights of widows and women. The coalition is positioned to build capacity of grassroots, raise awareness on policy, and engage with the local and national level government authorities to advocate for inheritance reforms.
On this International Widows Day (23rd June), S4HL Tanzania coalition stands with widows from across the country and advocates for inheritance reforms to ensure that widows’ rights are protected, including land and property inheritance, elimination of all forms of discrimination, and violence against widows and women.
Khadija Mrisho is a Land Tenure Specialist for Landesa and co-coordinator of the Stand for Her Land (S4HL) campaign in Tanzania.