Women’s Land & Housing Programme

Since it started in 1996, WFP has always engaged in land rights struggles in one form or another.  In response to the obvious and desperate need for a more coordinated approach to the issues of land and housing on farms, the programme was formally launched in 2006.

The primary objective of the programme is to ensure that farmwomen are aware of the possibilities and resources within the existing land reform programme.  It also engages in challenging existing policies to ensure greater protection and faster transformation of rural land ownership patterns in favour of farmwomen.  The programme challenges the violation of farmwomen’s land and housing rights, especially the increase in farm dweller evictions.

The Land and Housing Programme aims to contribute to ensuring that the needs of farm dwellers, especially farmwomen, are addressed in the race, class and gender transformation of the South African countryside so that black women enjoy independent and secure access and control over land, housing and other productive assets, and occupy a legitimate space as independent landowners and producers within agriculture.