A/HRC/16/40 caloric intake and nutritious food, followed by a drop in expenditure on education, health and sanitation, the reality of many households throughout the world.34 D. Discrimination against women 29. The intersection between women’s rights and the right to food provides a rich overview of a number of interrelated dimensions of discrimination against women related to access to land, property and markets, which are inextricably linked to access to education, employment, health care and political participation. On a global scale, although women cultivate more than 50 per cent of all food grown, they account for 70 per cent of the world’s hungry and are disproportionately affected by malnutrition, poverty and food insecurity. Governments are not living up to their international commitments to protect women from discrimination, as the gap between de jure equality and de facto discrimination continues to persist and resist change. 1. Rural women, access to land, production and markets 30. Women’s access to control and ownership of land or property is crucial to the strengthening of their security and livelihoods. It is important to understand the multiple factors – laws, inheritance, marital status and agrarian reform policies – that impede women’s equal access to land and the way these affect women by virtue of their gender at the individual, community and national levels.35 FAO estimates that de facto female-headed households account for around 25 per cent of all rural households, reflecting the multiplicity of women, from single parents, widows and wives of migrant workers to women migrant workers.36 Despite representing the majority of the agricultural workforce and production, women are estimated to have access to or control 5 per cent of land globally.37 31. The right to control, have access to and manage land is tied to a woman’s right to exercise financial independence, earn a livelihood and subsequently provide a livelihood for herself and her household. Agrarian reform policies that are “gender-blind” continue to exclude women from entitlements to land.38 States undergoing agrarian reform or land redistribution schemes must uphold the equal right of women to land, regardless of marital status. 32. Commenting in 2005 on the situation in Ethiopia, the Executive Director of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association stated that women had no right to inherit; the only option for them was to get married and have a husband. But when the husband died, they were also “kicked off their land” (E/CN.4/2005/47/Add.1, para. 22). To date, the reality continues to confirm this appalling observation. Many rural women, documented systematically in sub-Saharan Africa, envisage the legal difficulty that they cannot hold title 34 35 36 37 38 10 food-crisis/pages/kosovos-urban-poor-hard-hit-by-food-crisis.aspx (accessed 10 February 2011). Issa Sanogo, “The global food price crisis and household hunger: a review of recent food security assessments”, Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, no. 42 (March 2009); FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010. FAO, “Gender issues in land tenure” (High-level consultation on rural women and information, Rome, 4-6 October 1999). Ibid. Cited at the Post-African Development Forum Consultation on Securing Women's Access to and Control Over Land in Africa through the African Union's Africa Land Policy Framework and Guidelines, Addis Ababa, 21 and 22 November 2008. FAO, Gender Food Security. Synthesis report of regional documents (Rome, 2004).