As Easy as Stealing Sweets from a Child? Investigating Land Grabbing from Orphans in Pallisa, Rural Eastern Uganda

The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of land grabbing from orphans by investigating the institutions governing orphans’ land rights. The questions that guided the research dealt with the formal and informal institutions governing orphans’ land rights, the major factors affecting orphans’ land rights, and what constitutes a legitimate claim on land for orphans. The field work took place in the District of Pallisa in rural Eastern Uganda from October through December 2009. The empirical material was collected through multiple methods. Qualitative interviews were the main method and were supplemented with focus group discussions, observations, and analysis of relevant documents. The major findings of the study were that due to a parallel legal system, in which the customary rule is dominant, orphans’ land rights are negotiable and arbitrary. The parallel legal systems provide the local elite with immense power in land management, a power that is often used abusively to grab land from orphans. Without a natural authority protecting orphans’ land rights traditional power relations shape the negotiations over land, leaving especially the young, uneducated, and female orphan without land. Instead those already in power connive with each other to access land on behalf of orphans.