Women and Land Rights in Lao PDR: Rural Transformation and a Dream of Secure Land Tenure

Since the nineteen nineties, with Laos transitioning from a subsistence to a market economy, secure land rights for women have become crucial. The past decades have shown an enormous rural transformation process, and pressure on land and natural resources are catalysing a change in land use and land management in Lao PDR. This, in conjunction with new land policies, might have an adverse effect on women‟s access to, and control and decision-making power over land. Livelihood systems and customary rights that secure land tenure for women and men are threatened and undermined. A review of previous researches showed that there is an information gap because of a lack of studies on women and land rights in Lao PDR. Specifically, of studies that focus on the impacts of rural transformation and new land management policies that have been proclaimed in the past decades. Some of the impacts relate to land rights, food security and sovereignty, migration, economic empowerment. It stems from this background that this study on 'women and land rights' has been conducted.

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