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Privately-owned land is property. It is protected by the law because it symbolizes individual right, the right to benefit from developing it, the right to profit by selling it. However, this attitude cannot be maintained when there is a small minority of landholders and a large majority of landless people. In a situation of land scarcity, those with more land than they need cannot expect the government fully to protect their unused land against trespassers. Squatters never occupy productively used land, even agricultural land. They occupy unused land held by private speculators or by government agencies. Squatters hold a traditional view of landownership - the ownership of use; that people have a right only to the land that they can and do use, that one actually establishes ownership through use. What they lack is the legal tenure the will allow them to build for themselves, to develop their communities, and to obtain the required public services. Urban land reform which will provide the same amounts of land necessary for expanding low-income housing cannot be avoided.
= Prevailing laws always protect private or public property. But unused & unproductive lands are not always free from squatters - the landless people of any region. They always use barren lands for their use and non-permanent residence. Though they have no legal rights, but their wants can not be avoided.