A Yuen Long woman's brother drove her from their father's house, and village women made Hong Kong let daughters inherit New Territories land in 1994

In the New Territories, land held by indigenous villagers passed under Chinese custom. When there was no will, only sons inherited family property. Villagers rarely wrote wills, which many saw as a bad omen. Cheng Lai Sheung of Ma Tin Tsuen in Yuen Long said that after her father died, her brother forced her out of the house he inherited, pouring faeces and urine on her bed and destroying her belongings. Tang Ying had to beg a village head for the signature she needed to bury her mother. In October 1993 village women formed the New Territories Female Indigenous Residents' Committee. They gathered signatures in 40 walled villages and wrote songs in Hakka about their case. The legislator Christine Loh proposed amending the law so that daughters would inherit equally when there was no will; she argued that the custom broke the 1991 Bill of Rights. The Heung Yee Kuk, the rural council of village leaders, opposed her. One village head said the custom kept outsiders out of clan villages and that daughters received trousseaus when they married. Villagers held a violent protest and threatened Loh, and the Kuk sought help from the Chinese government. Committee members were called traitors. In 1994 the women won, three years before the handover to China. A father can still leave land to his sons by will. One village leader said the change would affect about 700,000 people.