A/HRC/16/40 62. A rights-based approach to trade liberalization focusing on protecting vulnerable individuals and groups is important to lead Governments to engage in public consultations with stakeholders, including women farmers and those most affected by food insecurity. Governments, in their mandates to respect, protect and fulfil, must ensure that women without purchasing power can face episodes of high prices or market disruptions without enduring chronic hunger or asset shedding that would erode their future productivity and jeopardize their livelihoods, as well as the livelihoods of those who depend on them. 63. According to WHO, the health of women and girls is of particular concern because, in many societies, they are disadvantaged by discrimination rooted in socio-cultural factors. Since women play an essential role in food security, their health is important for the health of the society in which they live. Underweight and malnourished mothers are more likely to give birth to underweight babies, who are in turn more likely to have mental or physical disorders. To break the vicious circle and enhance women’s right to food and right to health, all barriers depriving women from proper health care, housing, potable water, sanitation and healthy food must be removed. 64. Studies also show that the income earned and managed by women is positively correlated to economic and nutritional well-being for the entire household.69 Women are more likely to spend their incomes on food and children’s needs. In fact, research has shown that a child’s chances of survival increase by 20 per cent when the mother controls the household budget.70 Affirmative strategies and policies must therefore be adopted to enhance access to income-generating activities for women and to technologies designed to meet women’s needs and lessen physically demanding labour.71 For instance, equitable rights to land for women in both developed and developing countries facilitate the success of rural and urban small businesses run by women (compared to male counterparts) so much that banks and service industries actively support women's entrepreneurial initiatives. In addition, alternative sources of cooking fuels have proven to shorten preparation and storage of foods and decrease the need for daily firewood collection by women, and thus increase the food security of their households. E. Legal and social protection of children 65. Children are among the most vulnerable groups to hunger and malnutrition. It is not surprising that their extreme vulnerability has led States to increase their legal protection at the international, regional and national levels. In addition to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes the international protection and care framework for children. Seen in line with food, health and care as the three conditions to achieve nutritional security, the Convention includes provisions that protect the right to nutrition. While exemplary in terms of ratification, an important strategy would be to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child appropriately at the national level and to assure that policies are designed so as to realize the right to food of children, a group with particular nutritional needs. 69 70 71 International Food Policy Research Institute, Women: The Key to Food Security, p. 9. Martha Walsh, “Women in food aid interventions: impacts and issues”, WFP conference on the theme “Time for Change: Food Aid and Development”, Rome, 23-24 October 2008. Thelma R. Paris and others, “Assessing the impact of participatory research in rice breeding on women farmers: a case study in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India”, Experimental Agriculture, vol. 44 (2008); Thelma R. Paris and Truong Thi Ngoc Chi “The impact of row seeder technology on women labor: a case study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam”, Gender, Technology and Development, vol. 9, no. 2 (July 2005). 17