A/HRC/22/72 I. Introduction 1. Rural women are women residing and/or working in predominantly agricultural, coastal and forest areas. This definition includes women engaged in paid or unpaid work, in regular or seasonal activities, on or off the farm, in food preparation, in the management of the household, in childcare or other activities, in home-based and natural resources-based industries.1 The study on discrimination in the context of the right to food (A/HRC/16/40) identified rural women as a group suffering from discrimination. It found that: 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 (para. 29). 2. The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 16/27 of 25 March 2011, requested the Advisory Committee to undertake a comprehensive study on the right to food of rural women, including patterns of discrimination, strategies and policies for their legal protection and best practices, with a special focus on female-headed households and temporary and seasonal workers. 3. In its recommendation 7/4 of 12 August 2011, the Advisory Committee assigned the preparation of the study on rural women and the right to food to the drafting group on the right to food comprising José Bengoa Cabello, Chinsung Chung, Latif Hüseynov, Jean Ziegler (until August 2012) and Mona Zulficar. 2 At the eighth session of the Committee, the drafting group presented a concept note for the study. As requested by the Council in its resolution 19/7 of 22 March 2012, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights collected the views and comments of all Member States, all relevant United Nations agencies and programmes, in particular Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and all other relevant stakeholders, so that the Advisory Committee could take them into account in the preparation of the preliminary study. 4. Views and comments on the concept note were received from the following States: Belgium, Colombia, Cuba, Greece, Indonesia, Namibia, Qatar, Paraguay and the Philippines; national human rights institutions (the National Human Rights Commission of India and the National Centre for Human Rights Jordan); NGOs such as Caritas Internationalis, the Comisión Colombiana de Justicia, the International Federation for Human Rights, and the Mouvement mondial des mères. Submissions were also received from the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). 1 2 This definition is based upon the submission by the Philippines of 24 May 2012. The drafting group on the right to food would like to thank Ioana Cismas and Ivona Truscan from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights for their important contribution during the drafting of the present study. 3