The situation escalates in the office of the lead district officer in Magburaka, located in the sparsely populated region of central Sierra Leone. A man, who had only a moment ago been sitting relaxed in his chair, suddenly jumps up and runs to the other end of the room, where several men are quarreling. They get closer and closer to each other, voices raised. A fight seems inevitable.

Then Susan Conteh begins yelling, her voice rising over those of others. "Enough!" She repeats the exhortation once, and then again. The district officer, a man with a soft voice and gentle gaze, seems overwhelmed. He had just left the room to make a phone call, and now this. Conteh shouts one last time and silence is restored. She begins handing out fines: five euros for the man on the left, another five euros for a man on the right. No one dares protest, not even the district officer, although it's actually his responsibility to issue monetary penalties.

The proceedings are remarkable in several respects: First, Conteh isn't here as a representative of the district government, but as an employee of Legal Aid Board, a government organization that advocates for the rights of disadvantaged populations in Sierra Leone and organizes legal assistance. Second, Conteh is a woman. Until recently, women were excluded from almost all decisions relating to property issues. Not only did they not hold positions on the relevant committees, they frequently weren't even invited to important meetings.

Here, though, in this crisis meeting between two feuding branches of a family at the district officer's headquarters, the men listen to Conteh and fall into line. The feud, as is so often the case in Sierra Leone and many other African countries, is over a plot of land. Those who own land have power, and economic security. Even the devastating civil war from 1991 to 2002 was, at its core, over land control and the resources associated with it.

More than 80 percent of land in Sierra Leone is family owned, which almost always means it is controlled by a male family member. In most cases, the first-born son inherits the property and the daughters go empty-handed. If the husband dies or divorces his wife, the man's family usually seizes the property with the woman often winding up on the street. "Women have been systematically excluded from the key resource of land over the past decades," says Equality Minister Manti Tarawallie.

Back at district headquarters: On one side of the conflict are four sisters who currently farm the family property – and want to continue doing so. Their brother, though, the erstwhile head of the family, has grown so old and frail that he can no longer make decisions. Another branch of the family saw that as an opportunity to pressure the sisters into a compromise, especially given that a mining company wants to lease the land, which could translate to a significant amount of money. The women, though, aren't caving in and are fighting for their claim. "They told us that, as women, we were not capable of taking care of the land, what nonsense," one of the women involved in the case said before the meeting.

Earlier that morning, before things escalated in the county clerk's office, Conteh was sitting in her sparsely lit office, with old handwritten notes, files and notebooks piled on the table. "Almost all of our cases revolve around land issues, and they almost always involve disadvantaged women. Men still think they're superior to us," she says.

Then she takes a deep breath before sharing her own story. After the death of her husband, she took control of their joint property, beneath which is a lucrative gold deposit, which yields at least 1,000 euros per week, a fortune in Sierra Leone. But when Conteh went to check on things earlier this year, she found the army was on her property. "They told me: You're a woman, you can't own land at all."

She later learned that the traditional village chief had sold her property to Chinese investors and pocketed the profit. According to Sierra Leone tradition, the traditional chiefs are considered guardians of all property, but they usually aren't allowed to make such decisions without involving those concerned. Unless, of course, the property is owned by a woman.

"But now everything is different," Conteh says. Over the last year, Sierra Leone has passed several new laws designed to revolutionize the country's land-owning traditions. One of those, for example, is the Customary Land Rights Act, which clearly states that women must not be discriminated against in any way, that they must be involved in all decisions concerning land issues and that they have the same rights as men. Or the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Bill, a law that requires a quota of 30 percent for women on all important boards. The government also wants to set up regional land commissions that will be proportionately staffed by women.

Conteh has benefited from these new laws. When she found the army on her property, she immediately filed a lawsuit and also contacted the chief district officer, a kind of mediation authority. He called a meeting with all parties involved. "It didn't take long before the new law came under discussion. The upshot was that I got my land back," Conteh says with a smile. The village elder apologized afterward. "He has even started referring similar cases to me," the 50-year-old says.

There are now a number of other, similar success stories in Sierra Leone about women who have fought for their right to own land. Women like 78-year-old Edna Bangura. "I don't put up with anything from these guys anymore," she says. She pulls down her headscarf, shakes out her hair and proudly says that she is the largest landowner in the whole area, even though men are always trying to dispute her ownership.

Still, enthusiasm about the new laws is in no way universal. At the end of a bumpy dirt road, a three-hour drive from the nearest town, Ibrahim Mansaray is sitting under a thatched gazebo, the central meeting place of the village of Kithboi. A dozen women have gathered around him along with a handful of men and the deputy chief of the village. Screams can be heard in the background: A woman and a man are arguing loudly, first inside a building and then out on the street. "It's almost certainly about land," whispers one of the attendees. It's almost always about land – as is today's meeting.

Mansaray, a man in his mid-30s with a colorful shirt and a calm voice, explains the new law once again, telling his audience that women can now fight back and that they can no longer simply be ignored. Those present nod – it's not the first such meeting in the village. Mansaray works for a non-governmental organization and the German Development Ministry finances his awareness campaigns as he travels through villages to familiarize residents with the new legal situation. It's a job that should actually be taken care of by the government, but apart from grandiose announcements of a coming campaign, little has been done.

Mansaray is fully aware that opposition to the new laws is still strong. "Some chiefs don't even want to let us into their territory," he says. "When we put up a sign the other day, we were met with direct hostility. The traditional authorities feel their power is in danger." Here in Kithboi, too, the deputy village chief doesn't seem particularly enthusiastic. He has just had to listen to a woman at the meeting expressing her anger that women are being ignored. An international timber company leases a significant amount of land in the area, and the chief collects the money, "but we women don't get any of it," she says indignantly.

The village elder launches into a bizarre explanation: Of course, the men should get the money, he says. After all, they perform most of the work, and should there be conflicts with the neighboring village, it would be the men who had to fight. His facial expression betrays a deep-seated lack of understanding for the fact that women now want to have money. It looks as though Mansaray will have to come back a few more times.

After the meeting, Marie Turay, who is 85 years old and has nine children and 15 grandchildren, leads the way to a small hill at the end of the village. She points with her outstretched arm to a piece of land where dense tropical forest begins. She starts telling her story – about the oranges, mangoes, pineapples and bananas that they used to grow here, enough to feed themselves and the children. She had even been able to provide work to day laborers. She was doing well.

But after her husband's death, his brother came and took the land, a common practice in rural Sierra Leone. Since then, Turay has been making her living by selling brooms made from palm leaves, but it doesn't bring in enough and she often goes without eating.

"They took away my dignity," Turay says in a low voice. The new law was created for cases just like hers, with similar expropriations following the death of a husband now illegal. But here in the remote villages, it becomes clear just how difficult the laws will be to implement. Turay has tried the traditional authorities, the village chief and the regional chief. "They all refused to help," she says.

The 85-year-old could take her case to court and sue her husband's family to get the land back. "I know that would be possible. But going to court is expensive, how am I supposed to afford it?" she asks. Ibrahim Mansaray, the educational campaigner, speaks to her once again. He explains that help is available – from the Legal Aid Board, for example, which could organize legal assistance for her. But she doesn't really seem all that convinced. After all, she also knows that a court verdict is one thing, the wrath of a village and its authorities is another.

"The new legislation is really terrific," says Susan Conteh. "Now, we just need to implement it properly." Still, she says, it has already had a positive effect. Many men, she says, have already become more cautious, unwilling to risk legal trouble. In other words, they are now less likely to refuse women the right to own land.

With additional reporting by Kemo Cham