Rural women are estimated to produce more than half of food grown worldwide. They are more likely than men to work in agriculture. In rural Africa, 80 percent of foodstuffs are produced, processed, and stored up by women. In South Asia and South-East Asia, women account for around 60 percent of food production and processing. Women agricultural workers account for 54.9 percent of women rural population in Sub- Saharan Africa, of which 1.4 percent are wage workers. In East Asia and the Pacific (excluding China), women agricultural workers comprise 44.1 percent, of which 5.7 percent are agricultural wage workers. In addition, many women workers are classified as “unpaid family workers” especially in the agricultural economy of the Third World.
Programme of Action
- Gender discrimination, manifesting in unequal wage and non-recognition of rights and access to land and resources as well as labour rights
- Right to reproductive health is grossly violated
- No womenspecific social services (i.e. child care, women’s health)
- Sexual harassment as an occupational hazard
- Violence against women in the workplace or fields
- Feminisation of waged agricultural labour (preferably single! For certain crops? For certain tasks?)
- Feminisation of migrant labour (specifically in teerms of international but
not so much in domestic agriculture) and abuses committed against women migrants
- Campaign on the legislation and implementation of equal wages
- Campaign on the protection of women’s rights and welfare
- Campaign on reproductive health issues related to occupational hazards (from type of work women do and the chemicals they are exposed to in the process)
- Campaign on intergenerational rights
- Countries should ratify and implement CEDAW No. 26 of Women Migrant Workers
- Countries should ratify and implement ILO 189 on Domestic Workers before the UN meeting in October 2013
Resources
754.97 KB
765 downloads
Rural Women and Migration
1.10 MB
744 downloads
Climate Change and Gender Justice
1.42 MB
751 downloads
Women Reclaim Our Seeds
4.01 MB
710 downloads
Our Stories, One Journey: Empowering Rural Women in Asia
427.03 KB
783 downloads
The Farmerworker Women's Reproductive Health Workshop
1.42 MB
692 downloads
