Women In The Colombian Land Restitution And Titling Process – A RDS Household Survey Of IDPS

Citation:

Wiig, Henrik, and Jemima García-Godos. 2015. “Women In The Colombian Land Restitution And Titing Process – A RDS Household Survey Of IDPS.” Paper presented at The World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington D.C., March 23-25.

Authors: Henrik Wiig, Jemima García-Godos

Abstract:

The Victims’ Law from 2011 in Colombia initiated a land restitution process that potentially would benefit more than 5 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) that lost an estimated 7-8 million hectares of land when they fled their homes in the countryside due to the conflict. The government helps them to reclaim the same piece of land and give support to return. Women are supposed to receive preferential and differentiated treatment in the process and the land is furthermore jointly titled as a gender equality measure. However, the process is slow and even less people is willing to actually return from their current place of residence shows our RDS household survey sample of 499 IDP households. Fear of repeated displacement, psychological trauma related to the place of origin especially among women and loss of agricultural knowledge influences their willingness to return. Both Survey and key informant interviews shows that gender perspective is reasonably successful but women have less intention than men to claim land restitution, return and make use of the land.

Keywords: Colombia, conflict, land restitution, land titling, gender equality

Topics: Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Conflict, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Health, Trauma, Households, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2015