WUNRN
GUATEMALA - HUNGER & POVERTY -
INDIGENOUS RIGHTS - LAND - BIOFUELS - GENDER
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GUATEMALA - AS BIOFUEL DEMAND GROWS,
SO DOES HUNGER - WOMEN & GIRLS
Richard Perry/The New York Times
José Antonio Alvarado and his family
harvested corn in November on a highway median in
In a country where most families must spend about two thirds of their income on food, “the average Guatemalan is now hungrier because of biofuel development,” said Katja Winkler, a researcher at Idear, a Guatemalan nonprofit organization that studies rural issues. Roughly 50 percent of the nation’s children are chronically malnourished, the fourth-highest rate in the world, according to the United Nations......
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UN Special Rapporteur on the Right
to Food
Report
‘Mission to Guatemala’ presented to the Human
Rights Council [A/HRC/13/33/Add.4], March 2010
III. Situation of Hunger &
Malnutrition in Guatemala
10. Guatemala
remains a country in which wealth is distributed in a highly
inequitable manner.....The GINI coefficient which measures inequality,
is among the highest in Latin America (53.7%, and almost 80 per cent
of
the arable land is in the hands of 15.2% of the population.
50.9% of the population are poor, and 15.2 per cent are extremely poor.
According to the Forum for Consultation and Social Participation,
INCOPAS, more than 3 million people suffer from hunger, which is
double the number of hungry in Guatemala in 1991. The UN Food
and
Agriculture Organization, FAO, places the number of undernourished
at 2.1 million.
VIII. Non-Discrimination
79. Discrimination against indigenous peoples, which
represent up to 64%
is
a long standing feature of Guatemalan society......
81. In addition to the
protection of indigenous peoples, the Special
Rapporteur calls upon the Government to continue its efforts to
address discrimination against women......
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Women's
right to food in Guatemala - http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/FIANInternational_Guatemala43.pdf
Guatemalan
Women's Rights reminded by UN Committee - Women & Food - http://www.fian.org/news/press-releases/guatemalan-womens-rights-asserted-by-un-committee/?searchterm=Guatemala
The
Right to Adequate Food of Rural and Indigenous Women in Guatemala - http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/others/the-right-to-adequate-food-of-rural-and-indigenous-women-in-guatemala/pdf