WUNRN
UN Human Rights Council Advisory
Committee
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CONCEPT NOTE FOR THE
PRELIMINARY STUDY ON RURAL WOMEN & THE RIGHT TO FOOD
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I. Introduction
1. The Human
Rights Council requested the Advisory Committee in its resolution 16/27 of 25
March 2011 to undertake a comprehensive study on the right to food of rural
women, including patterns of discrimination, strategies and policies for their
legal protection and best practices, with a special focus on female-headed
households and temporary or seasonal workers.
2. The mandate
comes as a follow-up to the Study on discrimination in the context of the right
to food (A/HRC/16/40), where rural women have been identified as a group
suffering from discrimination. This Study found that:
The intersection between women’s rights and the right to
food provides a rich overview of a number of interrelated dimensions of
discrimination against women related to access to land, property and markets,
which are inextricably linked to access to education, employment, health care
and political participation. On a global scale, although women cultivate more
than 50 per cent of all food grown, they account for 70 per cent of the world’s
hungry and are disproportionately affected by malnutrition, poverty and food
insecurity. Governments are not living up to their international commitments to
protect women from discrimination, as the gap between de jure equality and de
facto discrimination continues to persist and resist change.
3. In its
recommendation 7/4 of 12 August 2011, the Advisory Committee assigned the preparation of the
preliminary study on rural women and their enjoyment of the right to food to
the drafting group on the right to food, to be presented to the Advisory
Committee at its ninth session.
4. The aim of
this concept note is to outline the main parts which the Preliminary study on
rural women and their enjoyment of the right to food will comprise and to offer
an insight into the approach employed.
5. The
Study will include the following parts, further detailed in the remainder: The
international legal framework applicable to rural women (II); patterns of
discrimination against rural women
(III); strategies and policies for the legal protection of rural women (IV);
best practices (V).