“Strengthening women’s rights and moving towards full equality between women and men are vital components of the fight against hunger and malnutrition.”
These are the words of Olivier De Schutter, a UN independent expert on the right to food to the Human Rights Council in his latest report on women´s rights and the right to food. The report sheds some much-needed light on a subject that receives very little attention: the equal treatment of women, especially women farmers, and how this relates to food security, a major focus on International Day of Rural Women.
Women farmers face major hurdles
Women play an increasingly important role as farmworkers as they represent 20 to 30 percent of the 450 million people employed worldwide as waged agricultural workers. Women are however, disproportionally represented in the “periphery” of employed farmworkers made of unskilled workers hired on a weekly or seasonal basis without a formal contract of employment.
The main reason for this, the report found, is that women farmers have fewer alternative options due to lower level of education, making them vulnerable to exploitation.
Discrimination still a huge factor
While the feminization of small-scale farming means more women play a leading role in food security, the report revealed that women still face discrimination from laws, social norms or customs linked to stereotypes about gender roles, and continue to have unequal access to education and economic opportunities.
He recommended to improve the women´s access to education and economic opportunities, which will allow them to increase their productivity and their substantial contribution to food security.
The progress of women farmers reduces hunger for everyone
The report acknowledged that countries where women lack land ownership rights or access to credit have on average between 60 per cent and 85 per cent more malnourished children.
A cross-country study of developing countries covering the period 1970-1995, found that 43% of the reduction of hunger was attributable to the progress of women’s education, almost as much as increased food availability (26 per cent) and improvements to the health environment (19 per cent) during that period combined. An additional 12 per cent of the reduction of hunger were attributable to increased life expectancy of women.
Women farmers are not just farmers
In addition to their role of small-scale food producers, many women face care responsibilities in the home, an obstacle men agricultural producers do not face. The report noted that the disproportionate burden from the “care economy” affect women’s productivity by limiting their mobility, their ability to market produce, and the time they can spend on the land.
Lack of access to child-care services in rural areas, combined with poor transportation services, sometimes leads women to bring the children with them on the plantation, as documented in the informal settlements established near the plantations during the working season in South Africa.
via Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN)
