Law, Culture and Women's Inheritance Rights in ... - Leitner Center

(d) prescribe such fees as he may deem fit, and generally make provision for the full
implementation of this Law.
17. In this Law,
“District” means an area of authority of a District Council established under any enactment
of the time being in force;
“Registrar” means the Registrar of Marriages appointed by a District Council for the
purposes of registering marriages and dissolution of marriages under this Law.
18. On the commencement of this Law the Bye-laws of any District Council relating to the
registration of customary marriages and divorces shall on such commencement cease to have
effect and shall be deemed to have been cancelled by this Law.
19. This Law shall be deemed to have come into force on the same day as the Intestate
Succession Law, 1985 (P.N.D.C.L. 111).
[FNa1]. Fellow, Joseph R. Crowley Program in International Human Rights, 2000-2001;
Associate, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York, New York, 2001-present.
[FNaa1]. Professor of Law, Fordham Law School; Co-Director, Crowley Program in
International Human Rights; J.D. Harvard Law School 1990, B.A. Princeton University 1986.
[FN1]. Nii Ashie Kotey & Dzodzi Tsikata, Women and Land Rights in Ghana, in Women and
Law in West Africa: Situational Analysis of Some Key Issues Affecting Women 204 (Akua
Kuenyehia ed., 1998); Mariama Awumbila, Women and Gender Equality in Ghana: A
Situational Analysis, in Gender Training in Ghana: Politics, Issues and Tools 44 (Dzodzi Tsikata
ed., 2001) (noting regional variations in women land owners with 50% in the Ashanti region and
only two and four percent in the Northern and Upper West regions respectively).
[FN2]. C.K. Brown, Gender Roles and Household Allocation of Resources and Decision-Making
in Ghana, in The Changing Family in Ghana 21, 25 (Elizabeth Ardayfio-Schandorf ed., 1996)
(explaining that women often work on the land but do not control the profits that they make).
[FN3]. See Kotey & Tsikata, supra note 1, at 215, 217 (noting that men own most land and that,
although women labor on the land, they often do not inherit family land).
[FN4]. Sally Baden et al., BRIDGE (development--gender), Background Paper on Gender Issues
in Ghana 12 (Jan. 1994).
[FN5]. The literacy rate for females in urban areas is 57% and in rural areas 28.3%. See Johanna
O. Svanikier, Women's Rights and the Law in Ghana 45 (1997).
[FN6]. The literacy rate for males in urban areas is 74.8 % and in rural areas 53.5 %. Id.
[FN7]. See The World Bank Group, Africa Region Findings, No. 145, October 1999, at
http://www.worldbank.org/afr/findings/english/find145.htm.
[FN8]. U.S. Dep't of State, 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Ghana, Children
(2000).