HAIROU, China. Sept 8: The limited inheritance rights of women emerged today as a hot topic at the World Women's Conference in Beijing with some Islamic delegates arguing traditional laws should remain unchanged. reports Reuter.

They were opposed by delegates who say the issue is one of the greatest economic barriers to women.

The debate focuses qn a paragraph in a draft document the conference plans to issue as a final declaration at the end of the United Nations' biggest-ever meeting. The declaration will outline an agenda for sexual equality for the next 10 years.

"Governments should undertake legislative and administrative reforms to give women equal rights (equitable rights) with man to economic resources, including access to ownership

and control over land anti other properties, credit inheritance. natural resources mid appropriate new teyh-uology.’1 the paragraph, enclosed in so-called "holy" brackets says.

The brackets reflect sharp differences among delegates that could lead to the paragraph being dropped.

"Inheritance is a matter of right." said Ela Bhatt. General Secretary of the Self-employed Women's Federation Cooperative Bank, with 250,000 members in six states of India. "A woman must have an equal right to inheritance."

India's women enjoy a legal right to the same inheritance as their brothers but in practice do not take it up especially in the case of land, because of opposition from Iheir families who do nol want family land divided, she said.

A stipulation in the Quran that a girl inherits just half that of her brother means many Muslim countries have adopted that as their inheritance law.

"The Inheritance law is the biggest obstacle to economic advancement," said Monira Syeda Akter Khatun of Bangladesh.

The picture is the same in Nepal where women are not allowed to inherit land on equal terms as their brothers and what they own becomes the property of their husband's family when they marry, said Manjuta Giri of the Nepal Centre for Rural Women's Integrated Develop ment.

As an example. Giri said she was fighting four broth ers for an equal share of land left to them by their father.

Women from the African country of Cameroon were in the same boat as those in

India, where inheritance is protected by law but not in practice, said Paulette Zuzanne Ntamag Ndombo. of the Cameroon Women's Aid for Development.

"People will even kill to stop women Inheriting land." she said.

But Halima Nazlh of the National Union of Moroccan Women said that only a small minority of women in Islamic countries wanted the law changed.

The Quranic law on Inheritance must be seen not in isolation, she said, but in the context of a man having Ihe obligation to look after and ■ support his wife and family.

"Look at it in this way and it is Just." Nazlh said

Much of the Quran can be adapted and Interpreted but the ruling on inheritance Is fixed and cannot be changed, she added