Women in Chad defy discrimination and violence to assert their rights to own and control land

BINMAR, Chad — When Milla Nemoudji, a 28-year-old from a village in southern Chad, divorced her husband following years of physical abuse, she found herself without means for survival. “There’s no one to come to your aid, although everyone knows that you are suffering,” Nemoudji told The Associated Press, criticizing the traditional system of land rights and urging local leaders to take domestic violence seriously. “If women weren’t losing access to farmlands, they would dare to leave their husbands earlier.” Initiatives like N-Bio Solutions, the collective Nemoudji joined, are challenging those norms. “As cultural practices do not favor access to land for many women individually, the community alternative remains the best possibility to achieve the objective,” said Innocent Bename, a researcher at CEREAD, a research center based in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. Marie Depaque, another village woman who struggled to get by after her second husband refused to financially support her children from her first marriage, added that “our fight for land rights is not just about economic survival but also about justice, equality and the hope for a better future.” Nemoudji dreams of better educational opportunities for the children in her community so they can break the cycle of poverty and violence.