A/HRC/16/40 the rights enunciated in the Covenant are exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. In article 14(2) of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, States bound themselves to take measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development. 10. In its general comment No. 20, on non-discrimination in economic, social and cultural rights, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights defined discrimination as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference or other differential treatment that is directly or indirectly based on the prohibited grounds of discrimination and which has the intention or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of Covenant rights (para. 7). The Committee insisted on the obligation for State parties to eliminate all discrimination, both formally and substantively. In the context of the right to food, it obliges States to revise their legislation, in particular laws dealing with access to food, social assistance or productive resources, to ensure that they do not include any discriminatory provision.5 11. Merely addressing formal discrimination will not ensure substantive equality as envisaged and defined by article 2(2) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The effective enjoyment of Covenant rights is often influenced by whether a person is a member of a group characterized by the prohibited grounds of discrimination. Therefore, strategies addressing discrimination, including in respect to the right to food, ought to take a vulnerable and disadvantaged groups approach, as the Committee points out.6 Eliminating discrimination in practice requires paying sufficient attention to groups of individuals who suffer historical or persistent prejudice instead of merely comparing the formal treatment of individuals in similar situations. States parties must therefore immediately take the measures necessary to prevent, diminish and eliminate the conditions and attitudes that cause or perpetuate substantive or de facto discrimination. 12. For example, States must ensure that all individuals, including women and girl children, landless people or indigenous people, have equal access to adequate food and to the means of its procurement.7 While one of the comments received recommended the elimination of peasant farmers or the urban poor8 from the list of vulnerable groups, the current study clearly shows that these are categories that suffer substantive and de facto discrimination. This is hence the appropriate locus to address the underlying causes of and factors contributing to discrimination – including socio-economic ones – affecting these groups and the existing best practices on how to eliminate or mitigate discrimination. Moreover, numerous States and non-governmental organizations have commended the inclusion of the mentioned categories and/or the attention paid to structural causes.9 5 6 7 8 9 See E/C.12/1999/5, para. 18. Ibid, paras. 13 and 28. Ibid. Comments by Canada on the preliminary study (14 July 2010). See for instance the views and comments on the preliminary study by Mauritius (8 October 2010), Portugal (4 August 2010), Switzerland (6 July 2010), the Human Rights Advocates (not dated), FIAN (4 October 2010), as well as the speech by Henry Saragih, general coordinator of Via Campesina, at the fourth session of the Advisory Committee (27 January 2010). 5