Experts at a seminar said approximately 96 per cent of privately owned land in Bangladesh was owned by male, whereas, women do not generally have resources or access to credit necessary to purchase land in their own name.

Daughters and widows often do not inherit land despite legal provisions granting them rights to land. Separated and divorced women have no rights to claim any portion of their husband's land, they pointed out at the seminar on 'Women's Rights to Land in Bangladesh: Roles, Limitations and Transformations' organised by Actionaid Bangladesh in association with Nijera Kori and Association of Land Rights Division (ALRD) at Spectra Convention Centre in the city yesterday.

Zakir Hossain of Unnayan Onneshan presented keynote paper, while Farah Kabir, Country Director of Actionaid, Khushi Kabir, Coordinator of Nijera Kori, Prof Anisur Rahman, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, legal expert, Azima Begum, a landless women's leaders, among others, spoke on the occasion.

Some 78.3 per cent of the womenfolk of the country are involved in agriculture. This segment of the population's right on land and traditional role in agriculture has been diminishing day by day in the backdrop of globalisation and commercialisation of farming, said the speakers.

There is no legal concept of co-ownership of marital property in the country. Unless a woman's name is actually on the land document, she has no ownership interest in that family land, even if she contributes to the land by working on it or processing the corps from it, they said.

Many women are aware of these rights, but either they do not know how to exercise them or feel socially barred from exercising them. For these reasons, the legislative and policy recommendations outlined throughout the report must be included in education curriculum highlighting the benefits to women in asserting these rights, they pointed out.

The keynote paper focused on the relationship between women and land rights and recommended that women should sign land deed in their names, to raise awareness of the community on the laws pertaining to women's land rights, to allocate khas land to both husband and wife and to create opportunities for women to get greater income from farming and agriculture.