WUNRN
15
October 2007 - World Rural Women’s DayÓ
Annual WWSF global awareness campaign to increase knowledge and empowerment
Member of the Millennium Campaign
- Voices against poverty -
let us implement the Millennium Development Goals MDGs
In synergy with World Food Day - 16
October & Intl. Day for the Eradication of Poverty - 17 October
Open Letter to Rural Women of the
World
Theme: Claim your right to food!
Dear Sisters living in rural communities around the world,
Today,
we wish to inform you of your right to food. Did you know that it is a human right?
It is universal, acknowledged at the
national, regional and international level, and applies to every person and group of persons. This right is not a political
option that governments can choose to implement or ignore. Acknowledging this
right means obligations for governments. The primacy of human rights over an
economic or commercial agreement has been affirmed repeatedly by UN resolutions
adopted by member states.
The right to food was first recognized at
the international level in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Art. 25 proclaims: “Everyone has the right to a
standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his
family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social
services and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances
beyond his control.” http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
The importance of the Universal Declaration lies in its
acceptance today by all countries. Complementary rights enabling you to improve
access to food, health, education, training and opportunities for employment
have been outlined in the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which is the most important UN
Convention dedicated to women's rights. 185 countries - over 90% of UN member
states - are party to this Convention. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
The right to food is also defined in the General Comment No. 12 of the UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: “The right of every man, woman and child
alone and in community with others to have physical and economic access at all
times to adequate food or means for its procurement in ways consistent with
human dignity”. (§6)
Accordingly, the right to food implies three types of obligations - the
obligation to respect, protect and
fulfil. “The obligation to respect existing access to adequate food
requires State parties not to take any measures that result in preventing such
access. The obligation to protect requires measures by the State
to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive people of their access
to adequate food. The obligation to fulfil (facilitate) means that States
must pro-actively engage in activities intended to strengthen people’s access
to and utilization of resources and means to ensure their livelihood, including
food security. Finally, whenever an individual or group is unable to enjoy the
right to adequate food by the means at their disposal, States have the
obligation to fulfil (provide) that right directly”. (§15)
Many of you are
farmers in your own right, mainly growing food on family plots for your
families. Most of your work is invisible although you carry out essential work
such as hoeing, planting, weeding and harvesting with simple tools and little
outside assistance. This often means that you have no recognized independent
status as farmers and your work is considered as secondary within both the
family and society. The numbers, however, tell us a different story. In Sub-Saharan
Africa, you contribute roughly 60 to 80% of labour in food production, both for
household consumption and for sale. In
In other words, you make a vital contribution to
feeding the world and for that you deserve recognition, acknowledgement and
support. You are a key actor in reducing hunger and poverty.
On this year’s World Day - 15 October - we empower you to claim your basic human
right and ensure that your Government
§ Invests in eradicating hunger. The right to food
is not about charity, but about ensuring that all people have the capacity to
feed themselves
§ Protects you from actions of others that might
violate your right to food with the result of increasing levels of hunger and
food insecurity
§ Provides you with agricultural credit and loans, marketing
facilities, appropriate technology and equal treatment in land and agrarian
reform
§ Makes available to you training, education and extension services
in order to increase your technical efficiency
§ Includes you in development planning at all levels
§ Facilitates the organization of your self-help groups,
cooperatives and rural women’s associations
§ Provides you access to adequate health care facilities,
including information, counselling and family planning services (source: UN reports)
§ Implements the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and ratifies the
Optional Protocol
(if it has not already done so) as well as
implements the strategic objectives and actions set out in the Beijing Platform
for Action.
Dear Sisters, Please remember that no country or government is
allowed to deny you your fundamental universal human rights. Lobby
your government to proclaim 15
October a National Rural
Women’s Day, a day for you to celebrate and show your contributions and
to remind your Head of State to honour the promises made in your name. Remember
you are the salt of the earth and give birth to humanity. WWSF invites you also
to nominate candidates for its annual awards, the Prize for women’s creativity in rural life (331 prizes awarded
so far). For Nomination guidelines, visit
(http://www.woman.ch/women/1-guidelines.php) and for names of Laureates, visit (http://www.woman.ch/women/1-laureates.php) Elly Pradervand, WWSF Executive Director & Global campaign
coordinator for World Rural Women’s Day - 15 October www.woman.ch
Convening organisation since 1997: WWSF Women’s World Summit Foundation, 11 av. de la
Paix, 1202
Use
of logo (© WWSF) is permitted for information purposes only. For
commercial purposes, a written permission from WWSF is required.
We thank you for sending us reports of your local and
national activities to mark World Rural Women’s Day 2007.
WHY A
WORLD RURAL WOMEN’S DAY - 15 OCTOBER©
The day provides rural women
and their organizations with a focal point to:
· Raise the profile
of rural women
· Sensitize both
government and civil society to their crucial yet largely unrecognized roles
· To promote action
in their support. Initiatives on how to celebrate the World Day are left to
individual organizations and communities, according to their own traditions and
requirements. Activities or events should be concrete and visible This action
undertaken by rural and farming women in all parts of the world on the very
same day, in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation, would strengthen the
impact of the day.
FACTS ON
RURAL WOMEN
· Rural women, mainly
farmers, are at least 1.6 billion and represent more than a quarter of the
total population
· Rural women produce
on average more than half of all the food that is grown: up to 80% in Africa,
60% in Asia,
between 30 and 40% in
· Women own only 2%
of the land, and receive only 1% of all agricultural credit.
· Only 5% of all
agricultural extension resources are directed to women.
· Women represent two
thirds of all illiterate people.
· The number of rural
women living in poverty has doubled since 1970.
MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS MDGs
Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger; Achieve
universal primary education; Promote gender equality and empower women; Reduce
child mortality; Improve maternal health; Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other
diseases; Ensure environmental sustainability; Develop a global partnership for
development.
2007 reports indicate that the poorest are getting a little
less poor in most regions except for sub-Saharan Africa which remains the
highest in the world, indicating that the poor in that region are the most
economically disadvantaged in the world. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
CEDAW
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
Article 14
1. States Parties
shall take into account the particular problems faced by rural women and the
significant roles which rural women play in economic survival of their
families, including their work in the non-monetized sectors of the economy, and
shall take all appropriate measures to ensure the application of the provisions
of the present Convention to women in rural areas.
2. States Parties
shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women
in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women,
that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular,
shall ensure to such women the right:
(a) To participate in the
elaboration and implementation of development planning
(b) To have access to adequate
health care facilities, including information, counselling and services in
family planning
(c) To benefit directly from
social security programs
(d) To obtain all types of
training and education, formal and non-formal, including that relating to
functional literacy, as well as, inter
alias, the benefit of all community and extension services, in order to
increase their technical proficiency
(e) To organize self-help groups
and co-operatives in order to obtain equal access to economic opportunities
through employment or self-employment
(f) To participate in
all community activities
(g) To have access it agricultural
credit and loans, marketing facilities, appropriate technology and equal
treatment in land and agrarian reform as well as in land resettlement schemes
(h) To enjoy adequate living
conditions, particularly in relation housing, sanitation, electricity and water
supply, transport and communications.
CEDAW
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL
The Optional Protocol was opened for signature,
ratification and accession on 10 December 1999, and entered into force on 22
December 2000. As of 1 June 2004, 60 States parties to the Convention had
become party to the Optional Protocol.
WWSF Women’s World
11 av . de la Paix, 1202 Geneva E-mail
info@wwsf.ch -
Internet www.woman.ch
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