Rights & Leadership

Since 2011, PWC has supported pastoralist women in Ngorongoro to establish Women’s Rights and Leadership Forums (WRLFs) which work at the community level to educate about and defend women’s rights, strengthen women’s leadership and public participation, and enhance women’s economic empowerment.

Building on more than a decade of community engagement and development, PWC established the WRLFs as a platform for communities to discuss and resolve a wider variety of issues facing women and girls, including land and property rights, domestic violence issues, instances of child marriage and the inclusion and promotion of women as civil leaders and economic contributors in their communities.

WRLFs comprise elected groups of local women who commit themselves to:     

• increasing women’s representation in local leadership and government positions;     
• reducing and preventing instances of gender-based violence and forced marriage and;     
• resolving gender disparity and rights violations relating to ownership of land and property. 

In 2022 PWC supported the work of  180 members of WRLFs in eight villages in Ngorongoro District. 10 village councils and 240 WRLF members were trained on property and land rights, case reporting and court procedures. 70 groups, village leaders and traditional leaders in Longido District were also trained on gender rights. To date, more than 350 women have applied and received plots of land, increasing food security for families and challenging cultural norms about women’s ownership of property.