Decades After Apartheid, South African Woman Battles to Reclaim Family Home Lost Due to Gender-Biased Property Laws
Johannesburg, South Africa – At age 74, Johanna Motlhamme finds herself battling a decades-long struggle to reclaim her family home in Soweto, after a legal oversight linked to apartheid-era laws allowed her ex-husband to sell the property, stripping her and her four children of their inheritance. This plight underscores a systemic issue faced by numerous Black families amid South Africa’s complex history of racially skewed property laws. During apartheid, harsh laws barred Black individuals from owning land, a restriction that lingered symbolically into the dawn of democracy. Although the post-apartheid era brought about reform aimed … Read more