PWESCR Hosts a Roundtable with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

March 30, 2010

PWESCR organised a one-day roundtable – Women’s Productive Resources: Realising the Right to Food for All ─ with Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, in Chennai, India on March 30, 2010. The goal was for women leaders to engage with Olivier De Schutter on gender aspects of productive resources and their links to the right to food. The roundtable was organised in conjunction with the Special Rapporteur’s regional consultations on land, which will inform his upcoming report to the Human Rights Council on land and the right to food.

The roundtable was attended by a diverse group of experts and advocates with extensive experience in women’s issues related to land, agriculture, water, forests, social security, microcredit, the situations of vulnerable communities such as tribals and Dalits, and environmental issues, including climate change.

Women leaders at the Roundtable asserted that the issues of productive resources are critical to women because the right to food cannot be looked at just as feeding one self or to just be free from hunger. It has increasingly become difficult for women to live a live of dignity without these resources. Patriarchy, prescribed gendered roles, and harmful law and policies have exacerbated the obstacles that women confront. There are laws that do give women legal entitlements to land. However, women are not land owners. They are working on land doing various forms of livelihood related activities but they are not recognized as farmers or workers either. Several tribal communities in India are facing threats of displacement from their traditional land for various reasons. This trend is particularly devastating for tribal women as they are dependent on land including forests which are primary sources for their livelihood. Women loose their traditional land but get no rehabilitation/compensation for their land as they were not land owners in the first place. Traditionally women are also responsible for procuring water. Therefore, lack of access to water has an adverse effect on them. India doesn’t recognize the right to water as an entitlement.

To realise the right to food, it is essential to recognize women as economic agents -- producers, and workers – contributing to the well being of their family and communities.

Some of the key recommendations from the roundtable were:

1. All activities done by women on land are livelihood related activities critical to a sustained life with dignity.
2. To ensure right to food for all it is critical to give women ownership, access, management, and control over productive resources as true entitlements.
3. The right to food should not just cover food entitlements but look towards improving food, nutritional, fodder, fuel wood, livelihood and ecological security. Efforts of women need to be recognised and policy alternatives developed, which emphasise production of food crops, biomass generation, traditional seed management and prohibition of further alienation of land and natural resources.
4. Social and cultural factors must no longer be used as an excuse to deny women their rights to productive resources. This needs to be revisited and reformed in favour of women’s entitlements.
5. Joint land titles should be given to men and women and their secondary right to land needs to be recorded in the record of rights.
6. Women’s access and control over their own savings must be protected as it is an effective social protection net for food insecure households.
7. There is an urgent need to have gender segregated data on productive resources.
8. Women’s equal and engaged participation and involvement in decision-making should be ensured in all aspects of negotiating and developing productive resources.
9. Recognize livelihoods as a human right

AFGHANISTAN WOMEN LEADERS TALK ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE & WOMEN

20 October, 08

PWESCR organized an informal discussion with Afghanistan women leader
Ms. Shinkai Karokhail (Member of the Parliament in the current legislative body),
Ms. Wazhma Frogh (Country Director for Global Rights and women’s rights activist),
Ms. Hasina Safi (Managing Director for Afghan Women Educational Center),
Ms Sheila Samimi, (Advocacy Program Officer for women’s Network) and
Ms. Stur Ayubi, (Program Associate for Women’s Rights Campaign) and women’s right group for the mutual sharing of strategies and ideas. In this discussion issues concerning to women got highlighted and also the condition of women in Afghanistan, India and Iran.

PWESCR participated in the Asia Pacific NGO Consultation with Dr. Yakin Ertürk, United Nations Special Reporter  on Violence against Women and Prof. S. James Anaya, United Nations Special Reporter on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom of Indigenous People, Its Causes and Consequences (UNSRVAW), from 15-16 October 2008, New Delhi, Women demanded Greater Protection for Foreign Domestic Workers and All Women Migrants!

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