Photograph: Sera Sefeti. Retrieved from theguardian.com
Ofa Ki Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki was attending a workshop on gender issues in Tonga many years ago when she came to a striking realisation: “If my father dies everything in our house, from the land to belongings, will automatically transfer to my brother.”
The 49-year-old went straight to her dad and said “if you die, I will inherit nothing. He looked at me with nothing to say, and I told him that it was really unfair.”
It marked the beginning of her journey as an advocate; Guttenbeil-Likiliki is now director of the Women and Children Crisis Centre in Tonga. The not-for-profit group supports survivors of violence and advocates for policy changes.
Next month the centre will be renamed Fefine To’a – meaning “the strength of a courageous Tongan woman” – and the organisation will make the push for women’s rights to own land one of its key priorities.
“We can’t even buy our own land, and even if we do, it has to be in our husbands’ names,” she says.
Under an 1875 law, women in Tonga are prohibited from owning land. The law also makes it difficult for women who marry non-Tongans to buy land together. Women can only inherit land in specific circumstances, such as when there are no male heirs, and they must remain unmarried.