Leaders of six Owambo traditional communities in Namibia met
at a ‘Customary Law Workshop’ of Owambo Traditional Leaders
in Ongwediva in northern Namibia in May 1993 to make
recommendations to the traditional councils about harmonizing
customary laws. One of the topics under discussion was the
position of widows. Two issues were at stake. The first concerned
the practice whereby a husband’s matrilineal family
chased his widow back to her own matrilineal family after his
death and the second was that women who remained on the
land they had occupied with their husbands were required to
pay the traditional leaders for the land in question. The traditional
leaders at the workshop unanimously decided that widows
should no longer be chased off their land or out of their
homes and that they should not be asked to pay again for the
land either. The new norms for protecting widows became well
known and were enforced in Uukwambi, and the number of
allegations of land grabbing has dropped significantly over the
last 15 years to almost none today. This demonstrates a behavioural
change regarding widows’ inheritance rights. The process
of recording norms protecting widows’ rights in the written
customary laws of Uukwambi has led to significant changes in
local inheritance practices. This success is remarkable when
contrasted with failed attempts in other African countries to
change customary inheritance practices through statutory intervention.
The self-recording process in the Uukwambi Traditional
Authority presents a positive example of how normative
change in African customary justice systems can be achieved.