WUNRN
IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ 5 PARTS
OF THIS WUNRN RELEASE.
HUNGER & FOOD CRISIS - FINANCIAL
& UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS
GENDER - INEQUALITY OF POWER &
HUMAN RIGHTS
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Hunger
on the Rise: Soaring Prices Add 75 Million People to the Global Hunger Rolls
Rome,
18 September 2008
– Rising prices have plunged an additional 75 million people below the hunger
threshold, bringing the estimated number of undernourished people worldwide to
923 million in 2007, FAO said today.
High food prices have reversed the previously positive trend towards achieving
the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the proportion of people
suffering from hunger worldwide by 2015, according to new figures just released
by the UN agency.........
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Women produce between 60 and 80 percent of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for half of the world's food production, yet their key role as food producers and providers and their critical contribution to household food security is only now becoming recognized.
FAO studies confirm that while women are the mainstay of small-scale agriculture, farm labour force and day-to-day family subsistence, they have more difficulties than men in gaining access to resources such as land and credit and productivity enhancing inputs and services.
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20
October 2008
GENEVA
(ILO News) ─The
global financial crisis could increase world unemployment by an estimated 20
million women and men, the Director-General of the International Labour Office
(ILO) said today. “We need prompt and coordinated government actions to avert a
social crisis that could be severe, long-lasting and global”, he added.
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UN-INSTRAW: Women & Poverty: New
Challenges
More than 1 billion people live in
poverty around the world, and a great majority of them are women. Women’s
poverty is a violation of their human rights to health and well-being, food,
adequate housing, a safe and healthy living environment, social security,
employment and development.
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Book Source: Freedom From Want: The Human Right to
Adequate Food
By George Kent
Foreword by Jean Ziegler, United
Nations
(Former) Special Rapporteur
on the Right to Food
FOREWORD - Excerpts
"We live in a world that is
richer than ever before in history. Yet, 840 million people still suffer from
hunger every day. There is already enough food in the world to feed the global
population twice over. Yet, every seven seconds, a child dies from hunger or
malnutrition related diseases. This daily massacre of hunger is not a question
of fate. It is the result of human decisions. Hunger, malnutrition, and chronic
poverty still exist, not only in poor countries but also in some of the richest
countries in the world. The divide between rich and poor, North and South, is
growing every day. Yet, this could all be changed with political will and real
action.
The right to adequate food is a
human right for all people everywhere. The right to adequate food is laid out
in the most important human rights document, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights.
Human rights are primarily about
human dignity. Kent explains, in this book Freedom From Want: The Human Right
to Adequate Food, that the right to adequate food is not about charity. It is
the right to be able to feed yourself in dignity. Hunger will never be solved
by charity or by food aid. It must be solved by creating the conditions in
which all human beings can live a decent life, providing for themselves. The
human right to adequate food is a practical goal, as well as a moral and legal
obligation.
It is time to make the right to food
a reality."
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