A/HRC/22/61 also to food that is nutritionally adequate. Those chronically deprived of the essential nutrients suffer from malnutrition (often referred to as “the hidden hunger”), which makes them more vulnerable to disease. Those living in urban poverty face inadequate nutrition, since food patterns in urban areas increasingly trend towards prepared or processed foods that are higher in calories but lower in micronutrients. 29 Various nutrition-related risks are particularly exacerbated in urban settings. 30 Furthermore, affected households often do not employ coping strategies to mitigate the deterioration of their food security, food spending and nutrition. Safety-net systems also remain weak.31 14. The right to food is achieved when “every man, woman and child … has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”.32 It also encompasses “the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear”.33 For the urban poor, tenuous food security and poor quality of food threatens this right. B. Right to work 15. Unemployment and underemployment are typically higher for the urban poor, and the majority of them work in the informal sector. Many urban poor therefore face unemployment, underemployment, low wages, a lack of social insurance, unsafe working conditions and very little protection against unemployment. A 2007 World Bank study found that unemployment among poor men in Dhaka was twice that of non-poor men. These figures were even higher for women, with 25 per cent of poor women facing unemployment compared with 12 per cent of non-poor women.34 The urban poor also have disproportionately low skill levels; 70 per cent of poor urban adults in the workforce, against 50 per cent in the overall urban workforce are classified as low-skilled.35 As lowskilled labourers, many of the urban poor must work in unstable jobs for low wages. These temporary, informal jobs can vary from one season to the next, and pay tends to fluctuate accordingly. 16. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies the basic right of everyone to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. It also articulates that “everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work”, and that “everyone who works 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Studies conducted in Cameroon and the United Republic of Tanzania show notable differences in the food consumption patterns between urban and rural populations, particularly in the higher amount of starch, sugar, fat and salt of urban residents compared with the high-fibre and micronutrient-rich diets of rural residents. See Gina Kennedy, “Food security in the context of urban sub-Saharan Africa”, submitted for the Food Africa Internet Forum (2003). See SCN, 6th Report. World Bank, “Food Price Watch”. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food, para. 6. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food to the Human Rights Council, A/HRC/7/5, para. 17. World Bank, “Dhaka: Improving Living Conditions for the Urban Poor”, Bangladesh Development Series, Paper No. 17 (Dhaka, World Bank, 2007), p. 22. Lucy Winchester and Racquel Szalachman, “The Urban Poor‟s Vulnerability to the Impacts of Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Policy Agenda”, paper presented at the Fifth Urban Research Symposium 2009, Marseille, France, June 2009, p. 8. 7