AIDS and female property/inheritance rights

This fact sheet explores the issue of women’s property and inheritance rights and its relationship with HIV/AIDS.It argues that while property and inheritance rights are important for women generally, they take on dramatically increased importance in the context of HIV and AIDS. Reasons for this include:upholding female property and inheritance rights helps mitigate negative economic consequences of AIDS experienced by women and their households upholding female property and inheritance rights can help prevent the spread of HIV by promoting women’s economic security and empowerment, thereby reducing their vulnerability to domestic violence, unsafe sex, and other AIDS-related risk factorsdiscriminatory inheritance practices have negative consequences for AIDS-affected households: widows suffer partial or total loss of assets, including their land and homes, to relatives of the deceased spouse leaving such households destitute and more vulnerable to further consequences of HIV and AIDSGuaranteeing women’s property and inheritance rights in the context of HIV and AIDS requires both global and country-level actions. Successful action should focus on five key areas:documenting women’s land and housing rights and tenure security in high HIV/AIDS prevalence areasraising public education and awareness, especially among national policy makers and donorsreforming legislation, including customary law and practiceidentifying strategic litigation opportunities, especially improving legal skills, establishing legal precedents through test cases, improving the court system, and ensuring women’s access to legal structures and processesidentifying and supporting experimentation within communities to change economic and institutional arrangements including initiatives that seek to support the collective ownership or lease rights to land and establishing land trusts for AIDS orphans[adapted from author]