Zimbabwe’s Land Reforms: What About People with Disabilities?

ABSTRACT:People with disabilities have rights and development needs that should be achieved to enhance their socioeconomic and political wellbeing. The paper focuses on the situation of people with disabilities in the process of and the aftermath of the Fast Track Land Reform (FTLR). The land reform is considered as ‘tool’ for changing the lives off the black masses through owning and utilising prime agricultural land. People with disabilities are considered as one of the groups that have been covertly or overtly excluded from development leading to historical ‘disability gaps’ and injustices. Focusing on Bata and Bodeli farms in Shamva district (Mashonaland Central Province of Zimbabwe) and adopting a transformative approach, the paper explores the constraints experienced by people with disabilities. These include low access to land due to limited participation in informal land occupations, frequent travelling to district offices of the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement which most of the people with mobility challenges could not manage, individual and social construction of disability leading to exclusion in land allocations, high poverty levels among people with disabilities and lack of disability-friendly agricultural equipment and assistive devices. The paper argues that people with disabilities should own land as a key factor of development and should be supported appropriately to utilise and maximise benefits from agricultural land.