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Men, Tradition Denying Women’s Rights to Land

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Top: Women farm rice in a swamp in Gbarmue Town, Jorpolu Clan in Bong County. The DayLight/Harry Browne


By Esau J. Farr and Harry Browne


JORPOLU CLAN, Bong County – In 2018, Liberia passed the Land Rights Act. The historic legislation grants communities and women customary ownership of ancestral land, putting an end to decades of deprivation.

About seven years on, men who use age-old traditional beliefs still deny their female relatives access to land. The DayLight interviewed half a dozen women in the Bong County clan of Jorpolu in the Zota-Panta District with heart-wrenching experiences.

“It is difficult for many women, including me, to engage family members about the farmland issue. This place is interior and people can sometimes use tradition to get rid of you,” says Rebecca Gbartawee, a Worta resident.

“As a woman, if you continue, something may happen to you, or they will think that you want to use traditional means to get the land from them.”

Gbartawee was born in Worta, a town in the Jorpolu Clan, where she happily lived with her parents. Her family farmed rice and other crops on a huge plot year in and year out. However, after her father died, her uncles deprived her mother of farming on the land.

Gbartawee fled to Gbarmue, her mother’s hometown, about a 30-minute walk from Worta.  There, Gbartawee’s hopes for a better life were immediately shattered. There and again, they were denied access to a plot owned by her maternal family. Her uncles refused to share the farmland with women. 

With no access to her ancestral farmland, Gbartawee struggles to support her children. She had lost her husband, the breadwinner, back in Warta. Her late husband’s family took over their business and everything that they had worked for over the years.

Rebecca Gbartawee of Worta in Gbarmue. The DayLight/Harry Browne

“To get food for my children, I have to struggle. At times, I beg people to give me a piece of farmland to make a farm and feed my children. Their father is no more,” Gbartawee said. “This is very difficult for me to support my children.”

Like Gbartawee, Quita and her sister Kebbeh Leayne have an issue with their elderly brother, Paul Leayne. Their parents died decades ago, leaving behind the rubber farm north of Gbarmue. However, Paul does not share proceeds from the farm with his siblings, according to Quita and Kebbeh.  

It is a small farm with about 500 rubber trees, accessible only on foot. We travel through two other larger rubber farms on a motorbike, and at a point, we get off the bike and walk to reach it.

“We have long discussed this one thing and my brother can’t listen to anyone. When he taps the rubber, he sells it and doesn’t give us any of the money,” says Quita at a local entertainment center.  

“I want my share of the rubber farm so I can feed my children and me,” adds Quita.

We catch up with Paul at his house, near a lush green cocoa bush. At first, he declines, but now he grants us an interview, denying Quita’s story. He says he gives Quita some of the money he generates from the farm.

“The last time I gave her money was in 2023. Since then, I have not been active with tapping because I am making a rice farm,” Paul tells us.

Kebbeh, the youngest of the three Leaynes, refutes those claims, corroborating Quita’s assertion. “He has put us out of the house that our parents built. He said he is the only child of our parents,” Kebbeh tells reporters. She and her elder sister urge the government to pay more attention to women’s rights.

The experience of Mamie Dolo, also a Gbarmue resident, is similar to that Leayne. Dolo and her mother were compelled to settle in Gbarmue, Dolo’s husband’s hometown, after her father’s death.

Dolo’s father, who had encouraged her to farm on a portion of the land that he and his brother shared, had fallen ill and gone to Monrovia for treatment. Unfortunately, he passed away. After his death, her uncles had demanded she pay them a fee, which she refused.

Dolo’s nightmare continued even after one of her uncles died and the other left the town. Her cousins also demanded an annual fee to farm on their land.  However, after two years of payment, Dolo pulled out of the arrangement and turned to selling cooked bowls. 

Enforcement

Denying women their rights to landownership with ill-fated customs and traditions was the very thing the Land Rights Act was created to prevent. Before the law, women were not allowed to publicly discuss land matters in rural communities, let alone to own it.

Quita Leayne of Gbarmue. The DayLight/Harry Browne

Asa Chon, the country manager of ForumCiv, a Gbarnga-based NGO working with five communities, urges rural women to take courage amid cultural obstacles.

“We know that there are some discriminatory norms. There are still pockets of resistance,” says Chon in an interview at last year’s National Land Conference in Ganta, Nimba County. “Change is not an event. Change is a process.

“But things are not as common as they were in the past. There is growing awareness,” adds Chon.

Paul Leayne, the brother of Quita Leayne in their father’s rubber farm. The DayLight/Harry Browne

There has been some success, as Chons says. Jorpolu—the clan Worta, Gbarmue, Wiansue and Banama are located—is pursuing a customary land deed. Parley Liberia, another Gbarnga-based NGO, assists locals through legal steps to achieve their goal. As part of that, townswomen, including Gbartawee, attend awareness meetings. Others listen to radio programs on the subject.

Some women are already putting their knowledge to work. Last year, Zinnah Mulbah, a woman in her 50s in Wiansue, a 25-minute motorcycle ride from Gbarmue, won a legal battle.  

Mulbah filed a lawsuit against James Kollie, her fiancé, at the Gbarlatuah Magisterial Court. Mulbah was awarded half of all the properties they acquired in their three-decade relationship.

Court documents show she received one house, a motorcycle, household utensils, and 50 pieces of planks. The court awarded her US$1,020 as her share of a plot of land and a car. She got another L$37,800 (US$190), her share of concrete bricks. Additionally, the court awarded her 20 percent of the proceeds from the rubber farm in the June 5, 2024 ruling.

Waterfall Clan in Court for Nearly 9K Acres of Land

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created by dji camera

Top: The Whorn Waterfall sits in Ceeyugar Town in the Quikon Clan of Kokoyah District, Bong County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder


By Esau J. Farr


KPELLETAY TOWN – A man has sued seven townsmen for dismantling his cornerstones and signboards in a conflict involving a large parcel of land in a Bong County clan.

The items represented  Ceeyugar’s self-proclaimed 8,866 acres of land in the Quikon Clan, near the famous Whorn Waterfall on the St. John River.  

The men were charged with criminal trespass, criminal mischief, menacing and disorderly conduct, court documents show.

“On May 3, 2024…you Samuel Monway (and others) unlawfully, intentionally and purposefully went on the land of David Ceeyugar in group and without his permission, damaged his cornerstones with four signboards,” their arrest warrant read.

Ceeyugar seeks US$1,900 in damages. However, he failed to present documents to support his claim in a July hearing. Former Sub-Kokoyah District Commissioner, Mary Queminee, had also rejected the letter of administration.  

The accused deny any wrongdoing, saying the land in question is part of the Quikon Clan’s estimated 25,000 acres.

“We will make sure that our land is not taken away by anybody, including David Ceeyugar because the land is not for him,” said Tripple Zisus, one of the suspects and Secretary General of Quikon’s community land development and management committee (CLDMC). A CLDMC manages customary lands for a community and represents its interest in concessions, based on the Land Rights Act. Zisus spoke to The DayLight in Kpelletay, one of Quikon’s 18 towns.

Quikon Clan started the process of getting a deed last year. It is being guided by a Bong County-based NGO, Parley Liberia, and is currently harmonizing the boundaries with neighboring clans.

The suspects said Ceeyugar’s survey of the land was dubious. They said there were no survey notices and no participation from nearby neighborhoods.

Isaac Gbenyan, the Commissioner of Kokoyah Sub-District told The DayLight the clan only heard about the land when it was already surveyed. The chiefs of Kpelletay Town and Rock Crusher corroborated Gbenyan’s account.

One of the signboards townsmen dismantled. File Picture/Quikon Community Land Development and Management Committee

Asked what he made of the case, David Kangar, Quikon’s CLDMC chairman, backed the suspects’ actions.

“That is not a case. It is a carton. [Ceeyugar] does not have grounds, stance and witnesses. He just wanted to take it falsely,” Kangar said at his home in Kpelletay Town.

The story comes nearly a year after The DayLight exposed an illegal transaction involving some 300 acres of the clan’s land between a former lawmaker and a now-deceased elder.

Last year, deceased elder John Loway admitted to entering an illegal deal with former Representative of Bong County District Number One Albert Hills, Jr. The transaction took place in 2019, months after the passage of the law, which Hills signed. Family and other sources said the deal was valued at about L$400,000, something The DayLight could not independently verify.  

Salayea Shows Community Land and Forest Leaders Can Work Together

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Top: Eva Kpandah, Palama Clan’s community land and development committee chairperson. The DayLight/Harry Browne


By Esau J. Farr


SALAYEA TOWN, Lofa County – In 2019, the Sehyi Clan in Sanniquellie-Mahn District, Nimba County began the legal process of acquiring a customary land deed. Sehyi’s community land development and management committee spearheads that process.

Another clan group has exercised similar functions over Sehyi’s forest since 2017. The Sehyi Ko-doo Community Forest’s community forest management body comanages the 1,538-hectare forest alongside the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).  

There is a problem, though. The forest leadership does not have a good relationship with its land counterpart. Like several communities, they are at loggerheads, with mounting calls for a national conversation to resolve these disputes.

But things are different in the Salayea District of Lofa County over 200 miles away. There, three—not two—community land and forest bodies, peacefully coexist and solve some of the district’s problems.

Since 2009, the district has had a community forest development committee, representing locals’ interests in a large-scale logging concession.  

In 2016, the Salayea Community Forest was established, with a community leadership to co-manage the forest.

Then in 2019, Palama, a clan that hosts a portion of the Salayea Community Forest, established a governance structure to help develop and manage its land.

“If we don’t merge and work together, things will not work well for us,” says Yassah Mulbah, the chief officer of the Salayea Community Forest.

“We are working together as a team for a goal to protect the forest, to take it from illegal activities for the community’s development,” adds Eva Kpandah, the chairperson of Palama Clan’s land committee.

All three of the district’s bodies combat community challenges, including land conflicts and illegal mining activities.

A portion of the 8,270-hectare Salayea Community Forest in Lofa County. The DayLight/Harry Browne

In May, Kpandah tipped off Mulbah when she spotted miners entering the forest. Kpandah and Tokpah Koiwu supported Mulbah in filing a lawsuit against the miners. Koiwu is a member of Salayea District’s committee regarding the district’s large-scale logging concession.

In another instance, Mulbah and Koiwu are supporting Kpandah in Palama’s boundary dispute with Gbarlain, a neighboring clan.

‘Not invited’

In Sehyi, the stakes are even higher. Like Salayea, its forest and those of its neighbors Zor, Gba and Blei are all adjacent to the East Nimba Nature Reserve. The four communities run conservation programs that help protect the reserve’s endangered and endemic species, including chimpanzees and the Nimba toad. However, confusion among community leaders undermines livelihood programs that benefit locals and keep the forest standing. 

Yassah Mulbah speaks to The DayLight at the margins of the National Land Conference in September 2024. The DayLight/Harry Browne

“The [community forest] leadership said… they can’t accept to collaborate with us,” says Peter Dolo, Sehyi’s land leadership.  “When they are having meetings, [we are] not invited.”

Ericson Flomo, the leader of Sehyi’s forest leadership,  denies that accusation. “They have not called us in any of their meetings,” Flomo says. He claims he is the one who has invited Dolo to several meetings. 

Dolo refutes Flomo’s comments, saying he has attended Flomo’s meetings as a townsperson, not the land leader.

This crisis has rocked communities outside of Nimba. In River Cess, the leaders of Gbarsaw and Dorbor Community Forest have refused to recognize land leaders of the clan. “They are only there to take care of the land after the loggers have left. They have no authority over the forest,” James Gbordoe, the forest leader of Gbarsaw and Dorbor, said in 2021. “When the logs have been cut from there, they will have the whole land to take care of.”

The intensity of the crisis was displayed at a workshop in Ganta last month. Things got so heated that Silas Siakor, the Country Manager of Dutch NGO IDH, who helped organize the event, had to suspend the topic after a discord of claims and counterclaims from participants. The event was being held to gauge communities’ views on what they would need to manage their forest sustainably.

‘Forerunner’

Campaigners foretold this result.  A few months after the passage of the Land Rights Act in 2018, the Margibi-based NGO Sustainable Development Institute published a report, predicting the power struggle.   

(R-L) Peter Dolo, the chairman of Sehyi Clan’s community land development and management committee (CLDMC), and Ericson Flomo, the chief officer of Sehyi Ko-doo Community Forest. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

The report argues that “conflicting provisions” in the law, which created the community land leadership, and Community Rights Law…, which established the forest leadership, would escalate tension.

“Our thinking is the crisis will increase because part of the reasons the law was crafted was to address issues of rural marginalization in respect to managing resources in the country but also conflicting, overlapping rights,” Ali Kaba, the then-head of SDI’s community land protection program, said at the time.

“It is a good law. However, there are loopholes, there are gaps and there are contradictions,” added Kaba, who is now a Commissioner at the Liberia Land Authority.

Speaking in 2021 at a conservation event in Monrovia, Cllr. Negbalee Warner, a senior partner at Heritage Partners and Associates (HPA) and one of the laws’ crafters, somehow acknowledged the “overlap” SDI spoke of.

“If there is anything, it is that the provisions of the two laws are in some instances [overlapped], although an argument can be made that the more appropriate term will be ‘reinforcing,’” said Warner.  “The [land leadership] is therefore superior to all the structures established by the [Community Rights Law].”  

‘Confusion will do nothing’

Bonathan Walaka, the lead facilitator of the National Union of Community Forest Management Body, says that understanding the roles and responsibilities of the two groups is crucial for progress.

The union intends to hold a forum with national stakeholders of the sectors to help ease the tension between community leaders.   “The [forest leadership] should know that those who own the land are the community [people] and that they are only managing the forest,” Walaka says.

Augustine Dweh, the chairperson of a network of community land managers, agrees with Walaka, saying education and awareness are crucial to the solution.

An elevated view of the Sehyi Ko-doo Community Forest in Nimba County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

The same goes for Eddie Beangar, Nimba County’s Land Administrator.  “Having both them to understand their roles and to ensure that their involvement impacts the environment positively,” says Beangar.

Back in Sehyi, Dolo and Flomo are willing to work together. Dolo promises to invite Flomo and his team to an impending meeting, hoping to pave the way for a renewed, smooth relationship. The same goes for Flomo

“[Anything] that is better for Sehyi, Sehyi Ko-doo will accept, Flomo tells The DayLight in an interview at an entrance of the mountainous forest. “Confusion will do nothing for us.”

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