inistry of Health and many government orgainisations have sponsored public awareness projects to educate communities about the health hazards of female genital mutilation. The press also openly condemns this practice.Although women are not legally barred from owning land, under some customary systems only men can own land, and women gain access to land through marriage of family. In addition, customary practices do not recognize a womans right to inherit her husbands property, and many widows thrown off their property after their husband dies. In other areas, a widow is considered part of her husbands property and she too may be "inherited" by his family.Due to inheritance restriction and lack of affordability, women have little or no access to land in Nigeria. To begin with, banks are not allowed to give loans to women unless she has a written permission from her husband. If a women is single, it becomes even harder to rent or buy a house or apartment. Single women are often discriminated against renting apartments by landlords who uphold cultural prejudices (Oduaran & Okukpon, 1997). According to a statistic by the Nigeria Habitat Coalition, more than 90 percent of all family owned lands and property in Nigeria are registered in mens names" (Oduaran & Okukpon, 1997). Although Nigeria has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Disrmination Agaisnt Women (CEDAW), declaring womens specific right to housing and the related right of women to own, administer, and manage property, no action has been taken to integrate the convention into the west African coutnrys Constitution (Oduaran & Okukpon, 1997). Government has not helped women either. The housing needs of women are rarely considered when formulating policies and programmes. Women are rarely consulted or brought into the process of policy formulation and execution. Female access to property revolves around the legal status of women. "In Nigeria, the leg...
