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African Press Review 7 July 2018

Women's voices make themselves heard across the African press this morning, commenting on subjects ranging from land reform in South Africa to implementing a "sex tax" on their husbands in Uganda.

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According to the Sowetan, President Cyril Ramaphosa “will meet Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini to assure him that tribal land in KwaZulu-Natal will remain under the custodianship of the Ingonyama Trust and the state would never try and “grab the land”.

The Zulu king has threatened an all-out war “if the state makes good on moves to scrap the Ingonyama Trust Act and dissolves the trust’s board”.

The South African president hopes to ease tensions.

“I am going to have a wonderful cup of tea with Isilo and we are going to talk about this matter," he says. "We are not targeting communal land; it should continue to be administered by our traditional leaders because they hold that land in custody for our people.”

The trust administers swathes of tribal land in the province and under current legislation Zwelithini is sole trustee.

South African women farmers and land

It’s not just traditional leaders who are concerned with land distribution in South Africa.

Women farmers are also taking a stand, according to the Mail & Guardian

In a lengthy article it follows a number of them, including the glamourous Ipeleng Makae who was introduced to farming by her grandfather and father.

She’s gone to court “to make an oral submission to the joint constitutional review committee on whether section 25 of the constitution should be amended to allow for the expropriation of land in the public interest without compensation”.

“The whites, nè, the whites take our belongings," she explains. "They took this land from our grandfathers, so it is a very big problem for us, because we can’t do anything. Can’t even get a loan from a bank. When you don’t have land, you have nothing. When you have land, you have something. You can do anything there."

Goat farmer Kedinametse Maluleke says she’s “got a fear” of what happened in Zimbabwe. “I condemn this thing of pushing people out without compensation. I rather say, ‘Put some land restitution measures in place’. [Expropriation] will be difficult and there will be chaos. This thing is just for the politicians. Poor people like us who are down, down, down, we will not benefit”.

Ugandan women slap 'sex tax' on husbands

Ugandan women are also grabbing inches in the Nigerian press as many of them are implementing a “sex tax” on their husbands.

The controversial move is backed by rights organisations, to battle a patriarchal society where responsibilities and moral norms are both skewed against them, explains The Punch.

“What started out with isolated instances in the capital, Kampala, has exploded into a tactic more and more Ugandan women are employing to get their husbands to pay up for household expenses and atone for refusing to take on home chores,” it reports.

What began as a joke is now a reality, writes the paper. The number of women using thetechnique has increased from 5,000 in 2016 to more than 30,000 today.

“The spread of this practice is dividing Ugandan society," according to the paper. "Some husbands have agreed to pay up and a few have turned more responsible toward their families. Others have refused to pay for sex and, in some instances, demands from wives have spiralled into domestic violence   and even occasional deaths.”

Belgium's diverse World Cup team

Over in Kenya, the Daily Nation has been keeping a close eye on the World Cup.

Like many of us, it has been rather surprised by the Belgian team's outstanding performance, which led them yesterday to beat five-time world champions Brazil.

“Exactly what language does the Belgian team communicate in?” the paper asks. “No team has embraced diversity at the Fifa World Cup here more than Belgium.”

“French, German, Dutch, English and Spanish are widely spoken in Belgium," according to the article. "That, added to the fact that a good number of members of Belgium’s squad are born of immigrant parents, has made Belgium a team of players with the most diverse language background here."

”Many of Belgium’s key players are of African origin, with roots in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco and Mali," writes the Daily Nation.

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