The impact of HIV/AIDS on land rights: Perspectives from Kenya

SummaryThe study examined the impact of HIV/AIDS on land tenure in rural Kenya. The study found fewer examples of dispossession of widows’ and orphans’ land rights than had been anticipated in light of the existing literature and anecdotal accounts, and some evidence that Kenya’s statutory tenure system, notwithstanding its problems, can protect vulnerable individuals from tenure loss. This is not to diminish the social and economic costs of HIV/AIDS, but to caution against focusing on HIV/AIDS as the major threat to tenure security. Where HIV/AIDS does aggravate tenure insecurity, it is due to the conjunction of population pressure, stigmatization, and gendered power relations.