A/HRC/16/40 56. Discrimination of the socially impoverished from urban areas often overlaps discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, religion, caste or age.66 Governmental strategies aimed at improving access of the urban poor to food, health care and education must thus remove the multiple layers of discrimination. 57. The recent food crisis has revealed a need to avoid the negative impact on local production and consumer prices of imported food aid by reducing dependence on the latter and providing a mechanism to manage price volatility and encourage the distribution of crops from surplus regions to deficit ones. 58. There is a gap in the legal protection of the urban poor at the international level. There is currently no international instrument that offers guidance for how domestic legislation and strategies ought to address the plight of the urban poor. In the absence of international guiding principles, more often than not the urban poor are forgotten by national legislatives and thus further marginalized. There is therefore a great need for international guidelines to address the specific needs of the urban poor and the ways in which their right to food should be best realized. D. Legal and social protection of women 59. In its general comment No. 12, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights highlighted the particular attention that Governments must pay to prevent discrimination in access to food or resources for food, in particular in respect to women (para 26). In addition, article 12 of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women refers to the obligation of States to ensure adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation. 60. Countries that have adopted the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women have strengthened the legal framework of equality by repealing laws deemed discriminatory to women, such as family and succession legislation. The elimination of discrimination against women, however, requires not only changes in laws, regulations and institutions but more importantly cultural practices that are part of the process that creates and perpetuates such discrimination. Governments must show political will to enforce the rule of law and bridge the gap between de jure equality and de facto discrimination, including by affirmative action. 61. A 2010 study by OHCHR showed that action is required to eliminate forms of gender discrimination that occur in practice at the local level and in the private sphere, for example, limits on women’s access to nutrition and food, clean water and sanitation, and education, limits which in turn can increase risks of preventable mortality and morbidity.67 Similarly, in 2009, a FAO report called for a focus on cultural food habits, which in many countries hamper women’s right to food on an equal footing with men, for instance, in contexts where women eat last or are not allowed to eat certain foods available only to men.68 A focus on food habits and cultural practices become particularly important in cases where States parties have expressed reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on the grounds of culture and custom, with the effect of annulling much of the protection guaranteed by the Convention. The protection of culture and diversity is significant, but the persistence of gender discrimination behind the justification of cultural relativism is deplorable. 66 67 68 16 See M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and WFP, Food Insecurity in Urban India, 2010. A/HRC/14/39, para. 18. Isabelle Rae, Women and the Right to Food: International Law and State Practice (FAO, Rome 2008), pp. 12-14.