OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT: WE ARE NOT ‘IN THIS TOGETHER’, POOR WOMEN NEED LAND JUSTICE!

The Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) argues that South Africa's land reform programs have failed poor black women, leaving them marginalized and vulnerable. The letter highlights a stark gap between women's roles in the agricultural workforce and their actual land ownership, noting that this landlessness increases women's susceptibility to food insecurity and domestic violence, a situation worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Government efforts to address women's landlessness in South Africa have failed, with women constituting only 23% of land reform beneficiaries despite making up 43% of the large-scale agricultural labour force and 69% of small-scale farm workers.
• Land ownership for Africans in South Africa is very low at 4%, and women's ownership is described as precarious, aligning with global trends where women own only 1% to 2% of the world's land.
• The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified the vulnerabilities of landless women, specifically regarding food security and housing; women bear the heaviest burden of exclusion from social goods and are often unable to follow social distancing or escape domestic violence because they do not own their homes.
• Black women in South Africa face systemic exclusion from resources and rights due to unequal legal status tied to cultural practices and a lack of political will to address violations against them.

APA

Ndlovu, T. (2020). OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT: WE ARE NOT ‘IN THIS TOGETHER’, POOR WOMEN NEED LAND JUSTICE! Public Affairs Research Institute. https://pari.org.za/open-letter-poor-women-need-land-justice/

Chicago

Ndlovu, Thatshisiwe. OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT: WE ARE NOT ‘IN THIS TOGETHER’, POOR WOMEN NEED LAND JUSTICE! Public Affairs Research Institute, 2020. https://pari.org.za/open-letter-poor-women-need-land-justice/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Ndlovu |first1=Thatshisiwe |title=OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT: WE ARE NOT ‘IN THIS TOGETHER’, POOR WOMEN NEED LAND JUSTICE! |publisher=Public Affairs Research Institute |date=24 August 2020 |url=https://pari.org.za/open-letter-poor-women-need-land-justice/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{ndlovu2020open, author = {Ndlovu, Thatshisiwe}, title = {{OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT: WE ARE NOT ‘IN THIS TOGETHER’, POOR WOMEN NEED LAND JUSTICE!}}, publisher = {Public Affairs Research Institute}, year = {2020}, month = aug, url = {https://pari.org.za/open-letter-poor-women-need-land-justice/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }