Source: Women’s Agenda
Imagine being told you couldn’t own something because you’re a woman. Being kicked from your land and your home for not being a man. 

This is not something that women in rural communities across Africa have to imagine. Despite working on and caring for small farms all over the continent – and, in fact, producing most of the continent’s food - women own just 1% of its land.

Land means everything to farmers in Africa. Without it, there is no way to grow produce – which means no income, and no food on the table. It means not having enough money to send your children to school, denying them a path of opportunity.

It’s not hard to understand why the lives of so many rural women in Africa are defined by a sense of insecurity. It’s an insecurity that permeates every part of a woman’s life.

Something you’d grow pretty tired of.

Across Africa, every day, more and more women are standing up to raise their voices and demand their rights. A groundswell is building. Women farmers are driving grassroots movements, calling for their rights to own land.

Change is coming.

This October, women from the farms dotted across Africa will come together to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. From the roof of Africa, they will raise their voices for the world to hear, and they will demand equal land rights for women from their governments and world leaders.

Kilimanjaro is a rally call.

I recently returned from a trip to Uganda, where I met Penninah, a smallholder farmer growing all sorts of food on land she has fought hard for. Penninah is determined to go.

“I am going to climb to the top,” she told me, “Because I have to go and speak”.

Penninah, 48, is leader of the Ailwaritoi women’s group in Bukedea, Uganda – a local women’s farming collective supported by ActionAid. To the women of her community, she is a hero.

Penninah showed me around the land the women were able to buy for themselves, with a little assistance from ActionAid.

The landscape was once lifeless, brown and dry. These women were without confidence or pride and struggled to feed their children, or provide them with a future. Malnutrition was common.

Now, the fields the women farm are bursting with lush green rows of sorghum and maize. They started with five goats, they now have 36. They are building new houses for themselves and paying for their children to go to school.

Speaking to Penninah, it becomes abundantly clear why land rights are what these women are fighting for. Land is what farmers literally build their lives upon. And for many women in rural Africa, it means the difference between being independent and living a life devoid of freedom and opportunity.

It’s no wonder these women are angry.

Their governments have made promises to them to overcome gender inequality in land ownership, but those promises have not equated to action. In rural African communities, weak laws on land and property rights count for little.

Cultural practices and structures endure here that repress women and privilege men. Often women are not only denied property, but are considered property themselves -- objects without human rights.

But women are resilient, they’re strong.  When women come together, they can move mountains.

I’m lucky enough to be joining women like Penninah in their life-changing climb. You can join me too.

The women of Africa need us behind them and they need us to spread the word far and wide. You can support them to do this and you could even stand with them on top of Kili yourself! Go towww.womenmovemountains.comto find out how.

By Holly Miller

• Africa