Polavarapu, Aparna

Child Marriage and Guardianship in Tanzania : Robbing Girls of Their Childhood and Infantilizing Women

This article discusses the debilitating effects that child marriage and guardianship have on the overall functioning of Tanzanian society and examines the legal remedies that can be employed by the government to address these issues. On one hand, the Law of Marriage Act forces girls into early adulthood by allowing them to marry as young as fourteen.

Reconciling Indigenous and Women's Rights to Land in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines the tension between state support of customary systems of land tenure and women's rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. The author explores the interaction between the separate frameworks for international protection of indigenous rights and women's rights. Polavarapu recognizes that the needs of women and indigenous communities need to be balanced as many hybrid systems of customary and statutory law have failed women in the region. The author advocates for a new transformative approach that would require more women to sit on

Procuring Meaningful Land Rights for the Women of Rwanda

The author discusses issues of land reform and gender equality in the context of post- genocide Rwanda. Prior to land reforms in 1999 that gave women the same property rights as men, Rwandan women were not allowed to inherit or own land, and only had secondary property rights through their fathers or husbands. The author argues that despite these legal changes, there are still major social obstacles to gender equality that are manifested through resistance to granting equal inheritance rights to daughters and sons, adherence to assumptions of female