Why Is Women’s Access to Land So Complex in Myanmar?


Publisher: Transnational Institute

Date: 2026

Topics: Gender, Governance, Land

Countries: Myanmar

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Women face many obstacles in equality, work, ownership and access to land in Myanmar, rights that are essential for their everyday livelihoods. This TNI commentary examines why, in a country in conflict, these challenges have become systemic and complex. Customary law and policies pursued by ethnic organisations provide some answers. But there is still much further to go. Land reforms should not informed by legal principles alone but by the experiences of rural working women and those who are often ‘invisible’, including IDPs and migrants, in the field.