Abstract
Historically, women in Lesotho have been the de facto heads of households due to the migration of men to the South African mines. However, the high level of retrenchments from the South African mines, from the 1980s and 1990s, changed these roles as women had to migrate to seek employment within the industrial factories and the farms to sustain their households’ livelihoods. Men remained the sole administers of jointly owned property even when they did not contribute to the purchasing of those assets and accumulation of household wealth. This study establishes the views of married men and women with regard to the enactment of the Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act of 2006, which is the first piece of national legislation in Lesotho geared towards promoting women’s human rights. The study, thus, sought to establish the views of married men and women with respect to their socio-economic rights and entitlements in Lesotho, and whether the legislation has since made any difference in their lives. The legislation removes the marital powers that men had over their wives, giving women individual status as their own persons, especially in terms of administration of jointly owned property and access to economic resources. The Act, therefore, gives equal socio-economic powers to both spouses married in community of property, and as such repeals all other laws that were discriminatory towards married women. The findings of this study demonstrate that there is a lack of substantive knowledge and understanding of this piece of legislation by the beneficiaries. Where the participants asserted their knowledge about it, they appeared to be adamant that they were comfortable with their secondary positions in legal terms as culturally, the husband is identified as the ‘head’ and ‘leader’ of the household. The study concluded that there is an urgent need for popularisation of this law as a lack of knowledge can lead to a delay in terms of promoting gender transformation in the country in compliance with the international standards. Thus, the study recommends that Lesotho should remove its reservation on Article 2 and 16 of the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women as the reservation sets back gender transformation in the country.
M.A. (Sociology)