WUNRN
WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE & RURAL ECONOMIES – MARGINALIZED & DISCRIMINATED – LAND RIGHTS – FEED THE FUTURE PROGRAM - MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Prepared for the Panel on Political Will and Public Will – Fine Tuning
for Gender Advocacy, UN Human Rights Council Session 29. Geneva, June 22
2015.
Dr. James F Oehmke[1], Ph.D.
Dr. Lori Post[2], Ph.D.
Background
Contemporary
society is increasingly concerned with the right to be free from victimization
because of one’s gender, sexuality or other personal, religious, cultural, and
ethnic characteristics. In some agricultural and rural economies, women
are marginalized through restricted access to economic opportunity compared to
their male counterparts.[3]
For example, women entrepreneurs in rural areas operate farms on a smaller
scale and earn less money than males for equal output. This is hypothesized to
be the result of social norms that inhibit women’s entry into some sectors and
male capture of successful larger enterprises (Costa and Rijkers). In
many countries, women have less access to land because of legal and social
restrictions, and in some cases are removed from the family farm by force,
coercion, or are legally expelled based on existing legislation returning land
tenure to the patrilinear family in the event the husband dies. In agricultural
trade, women can face legal hurdles including limited access to passports and
prohibitions against entering into contracts (EAT), as well as disproportionate
bribes and extortion by sexual coercion (CCGD).
“Women in agriculture and rural areas …have less
access than men to productive resources and opportunities …land, livestock,
labour, education, extension and financial services, and technology… If
women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase
yields on their farms by 20-30 percent … [raising] agricultural production in
developing countries by 2.5 – 4 percent … [and reducing] the number of hungry
people in the world by 12-17 percent. [FAO, SOFA 2010-2011 p. 5]
The violation of a woman's economic rights in
fact does triple damage. First, it violates both the woman's civil rights
and her economic well being, which in turn triggers negative consequences to
her health, social interactions, and physical and mental wellness.
Second, economic exploitation and violence rarely occur in a silo but are
cumulative in their effect and deny her other human rights. For example, a
woman whose economic rights are violated may also be undernourished and more
susceptible to illness or frailty because by social custom she eats after the
male household members. Malnourished persons are more susceptible to HIV,
Malaria, and parasites. The adverse health outcomes further penalize a
woman, resulting in multiple deleterious outcomes. Women living in
poverty in the developing world have limited access to health care
facilities. Together these exacerbate the negative health consequences of
the economic violations. Third, because women shoulder the responsibility for
raising children, and because women are more likely than men to spend additional
income on children (Meinzen-Dick et al 2012), violating a woman's economic
rights may also be detrimental to the next generation’s food security. If
persistent, this may result in diminished physical and mental capacity that
perpetuates a negative cycle of vulnerability and chronic violations of basic
human rights.
Conversely,
eliminating the exploitation of women is the first step towards enabling women
to provide their families with sufficient incomes and their children with
adequate nutrition. As it stands, women’s legislation and economic
empowerment are currently hindered by both policy and society.
The
theme of this work emerges naturally: violations of women’s economic rights in
agricultural and rural economies are multi-faceted phenomena, nested in
multiple contexts, requiring complex solutions including both public and
political commitment to end these violations and exploitations.
The
next section develops the theme more fully and provides examples from
agricultural trade and land rights. Possible solutions are discussed in
the third section, including some supported by the US Government’s Feed the
Future Initiative. The final section draws conclusions.
The complexity of
victimization and empowerment
The
wider social, economic, and political ecologies women and men live and
participate in mediate/shape their individual
interactions/experiences/positions as either the survivors of or the
perpetrators of economic violence. Characteristics of these ecologies include
but are not limited to differences in biology; socialization; psychological
traits; and accepted roles in the family, workplace and society. Not only are
male and female roles characteristic of a level of personal complexity inherent
in all individuals, but their relationship is also subject to multiple
influences. Gender issues in land tenure and economic development are defined
by the immediate interaction between males and females, including their
individual characteristics, and also conditioned by the context and social,
economic and political ecology from immediate and primary influences on the
relationship to more distal but still significant mediating, risk and protective
factors. These include but are not limited to individual economic
objectives and power dynamics, local and community culture and practices, and
broader social mores and political-economic agendas.
In
some cases restrictions of women’s economic opportunities appear to be the
result of a singular policy with a straightforward solution of changing the
policy, e.g. when women's rights to own/use land are not legally recognized.
Yet even in these cases the broad socio-economic context is important.
Parliamentary passage of legislation does not always mean that the legislation
will be implemented in rural areas (Post, Raile, and Raile, 2008); if
implemented it may be unenforced or ignored by local economics, customs and
mores if there is a lack of public will (Raile, Raile, Salmon and Post 2014);
or enforcement may be uneven and /or prejudicial. It may be socially
acceptable for men as heads-of-household and perceived breadwinners to
negotiate with women on unfavorable terms even though the women’s income often
goes toward improving household food security. Solutions to what
sometimes are perceived as economic policy issues therefore often need to
include political and social dynamics to be truly effective. Another way to
state this is that pubic and political will must be aligned for true positive
change to occur.
Two
examples illustrate the complexity of what are at first glance seemingly
routine economic policy issues: women’s cross-border agricultural trading, and
women’s rights to land.
Women's
cross-border agricultural trading
·
Everyone
has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3
·
Everyone
has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Article 6
Increased
agricultural trade is considered to be critical to the emergence of African
economies. Removing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade would add an
estimated one percentage point per year to African economic growth rates
(Dollar and Kraay). The African Union has targeted a tripling of
intraregional agricultural trade in the next ten years to help stimulate
inclusive agricultural transformation (AU). Women constitute 43% of the
agricultural labor force in developing countries, likely play a big role
currently in agricultural trade, and may be critical to achieving the ten-year
target, but data on trade are inadequate. Formal trade data are of
variable quality, a significant amount of agricultural trade takes place
through informal routes for which data are very limited, and gender specific
data are even scarcer for either formal or informal trade. Thus hard data
are not available on the prevalence of violations of women’s economic rights as
they trade agricultural products across borders but removal of these violations
may be central in achieving trade targets.
The few studies of women
agricultural traders describe violations of women’s rights. For example,
“Women often face discrimination in the border process.
Surveys in India found that women wait 37 percent longer than men to see the
same customs official, and studies in East Africa have shown that women
cross-border traders are forced to pay larger bribes than their male
counterparts or provide sexual favors to get released when border officials
detain the trader or confiscate her goods. A survey in Central Africa
found that although the majority of women traders pay appropriate duties,
customs officials commonly perceive those who trade in small quantities as
‘smugglers’. Similarly, at the Mangochi border between Mozambique and
Malawi, only traders transporting more than 25 bags of maize require an export
license, yet unlicensed women trading fewer bags are still perceived as
noncompliant” [Enabling Agricultural Trade, Policy Brief no. 4, October 2012].
The
complexity of the situation is illustrated by considering the economics of a
wholesaler buying from a woman exporting her product. If the woman didn’t
have to pay a bribe at the border, then she would have lower costs and could
make more money. However, if social custom dictates that men should get
the better part of any bargain with women, then maybe a male wholesaler would
simply demand a lower price from the female importer after the bribery is
eliminated. The woman importer could sell to a woman wholesaler—if women
by legislation, social custom or access to finance are not restricted from the
wholesale business. The economic violation exhibited by the border
official, may be a symptom of a more systemic issue. Thus simply passing
legislation targeting bribes at the border may not have meaningful impact or
effectively enable women free access to markets.
Adding
non-economic motivations and considerations to the mix increases
complexity. Additional issues include women’s access to financing and
capital, which may lead them to trade in smaller quantities and thus earn less
money than men, and women may not have full control over the trade income that
they do earn. The result is that even gender-neutral trade policy, when
place in the context of gender-biased social mores and customs, can
disadvantage women including the poorest and most vulnerable (Cagatay
2001). The implication is that the needed policy change is systemic,
including changes in legislation, implementation and the social mores
conditioning that implementation. It takes both political and social change
along with economic policy to correct this economic violation of women trader’s
rights.
Land Rights
·
(1)
Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with
others.
·
(2)
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, Article 17
Women
comprise 43% of the farm labor force globally, and are the majority in some
developing countries. Yet women comprise only 10-20% of agricultural
landholders in the developing world, based on the limited available data.
Providing women with increased access to more and better quality farmland, farm
inputs, and labor could pull a 150 million hungry people including women and
children out of poverty (FAO). Yet a variety of legislative and social causes
diminish women’s land tenure rights and security. The lack of established
tenure or use rights is associated with diminished investment in land
improvement, including those improvements necessary for or contributing to
ecological sustainability as well as improved women’s income and food security.
In
the Amhara region of Ethiopia, land use certificates were issued with
complementary programmatic interventions to encourage women, especially in
female-headed households, to apply for the certificate. Nonetheless,
female-headed households (FHHs) faced barriers to application due to social
norms. Moreover, self-reported perceptions of land tenure security among
female-headed households showed no improvement. Additionally, there was
evidence that there are non-legislative social customs that create women’s land
tenure insecurity. This suggests both that FHHs will continue not to make the
investments in land and farming such as adding trees or incorporating organic
matter into soils because they may lose the benefits.
In
Rwanda, recent legislation gave married women strengthened land tenure rights.
Both men’s and women’s investment in land increased; the Men’s by 10% and the
women’s by 19%. However, there is at least anecdotal evidence that
co-habitating women and women in FHHs were disadvantaged; remedial amendments
are currently proposed to remedy this.
In
Senegal the Feed-the-Future-supported Projet Croissance Economique has helped
the women farmers of the city of Ross Bethio in the Senegal River Delta to
create a business organization that improves access to irrigated lands.
The business organization pooled contributions from its members—usually earned
through animal husbandry or handicraft work—and was able to purchase a small
plot of irrigated land. Even so, at first the women had access only to land at
the end of the canal, which received irrigation water unpredictably and only
after (male) farmers farther up channel met their water needs.
The
women of Ross Bethio responded in two interesting ways. First, the
primary crop in the area is rice, typically grown with irrigated water and high
input use. Knowing that they would not get sufficient irrigation water in
the dry season, the women grow their main rice in the rainy season using now
abundant irrigation water to supplement any scarcities or long pauses in the
rains. During the rainy season the rice is subject to a greater intensity
of biological pest damage, requiring more women’s labor for pest control and
resulting in slightly lower yields. Even so, the women were able to
realize significant gains in income relative to other rainy-season
opportunities.
Second,
the women were able to retain sufficient savings from this rainy season
production in order to access an additional ten acres of land nearer the river
and with better irrigation access. This will allow them to grow irrigated
rice during the most productive dry season.
Solutions
The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly defines the abrogation of the
right to economic opportunity as a violation of human rights in itself (Article
22).
Data
and evidence on the prevalence and severity of these violations are lacking,
particularly in agricultural and rural contexts. Women living in rural
households make up a significant proportion of the population in many African
countries and the majority in some; the poorest and most vulnerable of women
are likely to be found in rural areas. Therefore, addressing violations
of women’s economic rights in an agricultural and rural context will directly
help the majority of the most vulnerable, and may well generate benefits for
all women. However, better data are required to advance this
agenda.
Potential
advances in this area include advances in indexes related to women’s rights and
empowerment. For example, the UN publishes both the Gender Related Development
Index and the Gender Inequality Index. However, the data are national
aggregates relating to important issues such as schooling, but apparently
neglect measures of economic opportunity or disaggregation by locality.
Similarly, the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), commissioned by
Feed the Future, is a very useful tool to track empowerment over time and would
thus give indications that solutions to violations of women’s rights were (or
were not) implemented effectively. However, it provides little direct evidence
on the implementation itself. The country-level Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) reports and
white papers are a source of information on progress in reform & implementation
as well as tracking violations. However, the tracking of violations is not
necessarily systematic or comprehensive, and the reports are few and
far-between.
In both agricultural trade and land rights
examples it is clear that it takes 'a global village' in order to make the
necessary changes. That is, the solution is a combination of strengthened
legislation protecting women's rights, national and local enforcement of the
legislation, capacity building for implementation and enforcement perhaps by
NGOs and other stakeholders with strong technical capacity, public will to
demand legal protection for women and to create the social mores and
institutions that will prevent violations in the first place, again supported
by both government and civil society.
In
the case of women traders, the legal strictures are largely in place to
criminalize extortion and sexual exploitation. In a nutshell, ‘it is both
as simple and as complex as getting border officials to obey the law’.
The US government, through its Feed the Future Initiative to end hunger and
extreme poverty, supports the training of both women and border officials on
women's rights. However necessary this is, it will be insufficient
without women’s ability to redress violations. There needs to be greater
societal actions to protect these women’s rights. Feed the Future also
supports analysis of public and political will to end these violations. Each of
these violations occurs in multiple individual, economic, social and political
contexts, which may be country and/or culturally specific. Political boundaries
may not match the plethora of ethnic and linguistic groups that exist within
and across borders. Effectiveness requires solutions to address necessary
changes in these multiple contexts. The Feed the Future analysis will help to
inform how best to mobilize public and political will to support both
legislation and social mores that prohibit violation of women traders’ rights.
In
the case of women’s land rights in Rwanda the initial legislation was very
positive but did not take into account the multiple contexts in which women
live—even in a female majority parliament. This is more
evidence into the complexity of the issue. The Amhara example
demonstrates that context-specific legislation and programming may be necessary
but not fully sufficient to overcome social biases—more is needed.
In
both cases it is clear that elevated attention is being given to
gender-sensitive development processes that give voice to women. While
there remain challenges, significant progress has been made toward the
development and implementation of solutions.
One emerging and fascinating possibility for
giving greater voice to women and the implementation of gender-specific
solutions is the emergence of mutual accountability processes at the
continental, regional and national levels in Africa. Mutual accountability as a
concept received elevated attention in the Paris Declaration on Aid
Effectiveness, with greater development in the Accra Accord and the Busan Partnership
Agreement, but has gained little traction on the ground until recently.
The African Union heads of state endorsed mutual accountability in the Malabo
Declaration and called for a continental agriculture sector review in
2017. This review would include a review of progress towards meeting the
goal: “to support and facilitate
preferential entry and participation for women and youth” in economic
opportunities (AU, item
IV.4.d). West African and East
African regional communities similarly have called for regional agricultural
sector reviews. The AU has elevated attention to the implementation of
mutual accountability at the national level at a recent convening of the
permanent secretaries of Agriculture in Nairobi, and is providing technical
assistance to 17 countries to strengthen their mutual accountability
systems.
Feed the Future provides monetary support and
technical assistance at country, regional and continental levels to implement
effective mutual accountability processes. This includes support for capacity building in civil society, including women's
groups, at local, national and regional levels. This support is consistent with
AU concerns about inclusiveness of development processes with respect to giving
voice to women and other vulnerable groups.
Conclusions
Violations
of women’s economic rights are a human rights issue and thus must be treated as
such. There is case study evidence that such violations are prevalent and
severe in developing Africa, although more and better quality data are
needed. Improved, gender-specific economic policy is a necessary but not
sufficient to end these violations. In many sub-Saharan countries the majority
of the poorest and most vulnerable women work in agriculture and live in rural
areas, gender-sensitive agricultural policy and rural economic policy are
critical to protecting the economic rights of women. However, no matter how
well articulated are the legislative acts, administrative directives and
judicial findings, the laws and regulations will not be implemented effectively
and enforced in a gender-sensitive way without the public will to do so.
Solutions require simultaneously developing the necessary gender-sensitive
economic policies, the public and political will both to create a socio-economic
environment protective of all human rights including women’s economic rights,
and effectively to implement gender-specific policies.
Potentialities to move these solutions forward arise from the African Union’s declaration, and their commitment to mutual accountability for actions and results. Especially important is the AU idea of development processes that are inclusive of women and other vulnerable populations. With the AU declaration that 2015 is the Year of Women’s Empowerment and Development, the potential for progress in upholding women’s economic rights is perhaps at an historical high.
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