Global: Equal land rights for women worldwide

FIAN International Press Release

On the centenary of International Women’s Day 2011, FIAN calls for equal land rights for women worldwide. Access to and control over land is one of the most important means for men and women in rural areas to realise their right to food. Discriminatory practices, however, have driven women into increased marginalisation, especially when it comes to access to resources such as land, water or seeds. As a consequence, women are disproportionately affected by hunger and malnutrition.

FIAN International Press Release

Equal land rights for women worldwide!

http://www.fian.org/news/press-releases/equal-land-rights-for-women-worldwide

On the centenary of International Women’s Day 2011, FIAN calls for equal land rights for women worldwide. Access to and control over land is one of the most important means for men and women in rural areas to realise their right to food. Discriminatory practices, however, have driven women into increased marginalisation, especially when it comes to access to resources such as land, water or seeds. As a consequence, women are disproportionately affected by hunger and malnutrition.

Access to land as a prerequisite for women’s livelihood in rural area is illustrated by the case of the 200 women of the “Movement 10th of June” on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras. In 2001, the women occupied uncultivated land belonging to the National Honduran University and demanded the land be awarded to them by the state. FIAN has accompanied the women through years of struggle, evictions and resistance. On 1st of March, an international fact finding mission, including FIAN International and the Honduran Center for Women’s Rights, visited the women, who finally got the announcement of the National Agrarian Authority that the land titles would be transferred to them by February 16, 2011.

In spite of the announcement, the Agrarian Authority now holds that due to a recent Supreme Court Decision, the land cannot be awarded to them. However, the Supreme Court decision does not necessarily impede the handing over of the land title. On 1st of March, the women decided to start another advocacy initiative to finally obtain the title, and asked the international fact finding mission team to support their advocacy work with a public statement. “These women’s struggle for equal land rights has become an example for the peasants’ movement in Honduras and all over Central America. Now they only need one last step to fully succeed and celebrate the 10th anniversary on their own land”, says Martin Wolpold-Bosien, officer for Central America at FIAN International Secretariat.

According to the UN, rural women own only two per cent of property in the developing world, and as to estimates, women in Africa receive less than ten per cent of all credit going to small farmers. However, women constitute up to 70 per cent of the agricultural labor force and produce 80 per cent of the food in countries afflicted by hunger and malnutrition.

Therefore, FIAN is especially concerned about current trends, which will exacerbate women´s situation: Recent massive land grabs targeting tens of millions of acres for the benefit of private interests or third states - whether for reasons of food, energy, speculation or any other - violate human rights, as they deprive particularly women in local, indigenous, peasants, pastoralists and fisher communities of their livelihoods. Limited or restricted access to natural resources will exacerbate rural women´s precarious situation. “The recent wave of land grabbing threatens to further aggravate the existing discrimination against women in terms of equal access to land and natural resources” , says Sofia Monsalve, coordinator for land issues at FIAN International.

Blanca Portillo, a leader of the “Women’s movement 10th of June” in Honduras, highlighted at the meeting with the international fact-finding mission: “Our struggle is for our right to land, our right to food, for our future and the future of our children”. “Time has come to recognize women as key actors in rural areas and see them as rights-holders when it comes to negotiations and political decision making regarding agriculture policies”, concludes Sofia Monsalve.

Sign the Dakar Appeal against landgrabbing at http://www.petitiononline.com/dakar/petition.html

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FIAN is an international human rights organization that has been advocating the realization of the right to food for more than 20 years. FIAN consists of national sections and individual members in over 50 countries around the world.www.fian.org