A Woman without a Man

Imagine this: You, your husband and three small children live in a tiny home on a small piece of land. You live on a few dollars a day, and the garden that you tend helps to feed your family along with your husband’s meager income. You may not have a lot, but you are surviving, healthy, and happy.

Then your husband dies. Suffering from the grief of such a crushing loss would be enough to cope with. But then after his funeral you are then approached by your brother-in-law and his friends brandishing clubs and making threats that you do not doubt he will follow through. While the home and land where you live should be yours under the law, your brother-in-law and his friends have more power and status than you. After all, you are just a woman and, even less, a widow; a woman without a man. They force you off your land and suddenly not only have you lost your husband, but now you and your three children are homeless with no viable source of food or income.

This is a story similar to those that IJM sees on a fairly frequent basis in some countries where we work. While IJM’s Illegal Property Seizure casework is somewhat less familiar to many than other areas of our casework, it is just as crushing and threatens women and children who are already in vulnerable situations.

I’ll admit that when I was first becoming familiar with IJM, this type of story didn’t grab at my heart quite like others did. But when you look closely at these stories, I hope you’ll see what I saw. They are compelling examples of what many people, often women, suffer in communities where they are seen as having lesser status.

Women and orphans in these types of situations, while they have legal right to their property, are often left without any recourse when they are sometimes violently forced off their property. They often do not know what steps to take and may feel as though they have no options. The good news is that in the communities where we work, IJM can successfully advocate for them and oftentimes restore them to their land and secure restitution for them. Once they are restored to their land, our aftercare workers often teach them the skills or help them secure the education necessary to become independent and able to provide a sustainable living.

The women and children in these situations are often amazingly resilient, and many of these stories turn from one of vulnerability to inspiring victory, such as the story of Veronica: http://www.ijm.org/newsfromthefield/ijmugandaclientovercomesaviolentthiefwhosoughttostealherhomeandproperty

I would encourage you to read more about these specific cases and familiarize yourself with what many women around the world are forced to contend with. Click on the factsheet and story links under Illegal Property Seizure in this link: http://www.ijm.org/ourwork/whatwedo. Here you will find many of the elements that inspire me about IJM’s clients: bravery, tenacity and unwillingness to accept the injustice of the system where they are caught.