(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 45 property.18 Further, the Commission has highlighted that ensuring non discrimination in the right to property requires ’measures to modify or prohibit harmful social, cultural or other practices that prevent women and other members of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups from enjoying their right to property, particularly in relation to housing and land.’19 As in most parts of the world however, the denial of women’s land and property rights in Africa is pervasive. This is in spite of the widely accepted importance of women’s control, and access to land and property to development goals. To date, systemic and systematic violations of women’s land and property rights exist in many African countries in the form of statutory and customary laws, policies and practices and social norms that are widely discriminatory. These patriarchal beliefs and ideologies are deeply entrenched in the various ways through which women acquire rights to land and property. A number of African countries have dual legal systems, with statutory law coexisting with customary or religious laws. Owing to the patriarchal beliefs as highlighted above and how a significant number of people’s affairs end up being regulated through customary law the land and property rights of a large number of women have therefore been very precarious. In many instances, concerning women’s land and property rights, discriminatory customary laws have tended to dominate land tenure systems, resulting in women’s access to land or property being closely tied to their relationship to a man – as daughters, wives, widows and sisters. In some countries where laws have been enacted that prohibit discrimination, and constitutions guarantee equality, the application of these provisions to family and personal laws is exempted. Further, power imbalances and stereotypes within the family and home particularly around the role of women significantly pose threats to realisation of women’s property rights. As Banning points out, the right to property has linkages with a host of other rights.20 The right to equality is one of these rights. That equality and property are closely linked cannot be doubted and there can be no question that in addition to the direct enforceability of property rights, equality jurisprudence has a critical role to play in securing women’s rights to land and property. Putting this perspective forward, Bulto has propositioned that ‘whenever a given socioeconomic right is infringed, it usually leads to, results from or is accompanied by the violation of one or a combination of the right to equality, the right to judicial protection and the right to due process. A redress to the latter could also remedy violations of socio-economic rights.’21 This article proceed on the same assumption that the effective 18 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights ‘Principles And Guidelines on the Implementation of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights In The African Charter On Human And Peoples’ Rights’ http://www.achpr.org/files/instruments/economic-socialcultural/achpr_instr_guide_draft_esc_rights_eng.pdf 53 (accessed 17 September 2017). 19 Principles and Guidelines on Implementation of ESCRR (n 18 above) 55. 20 Van Banning (n 7 above). 21 Bulto (n 3 above) 143.