A/HRC/19/75 as workers entitled to receive their own salary. As a consequence, it is reported that many landowners do not even pay women for their work, since they are considered “helpers” of their husbands.33 30. Family law (which restricts a married women's capacity to inherit equally) and succession law (which has been shown to restrict women's inheritance rights) have been regarded as the two sets of laws with practices that have discriminatory effects in excluding women from claiming land rights. In many countries, discrimination persists in customary laws, despite strong constitutional and legislative frameworks. In Bangladesh, for example, women are guaranteed equality by the law, but existing social values, reinforced by religion, permit discrimination against them. Under Islamic law, a daughter has the right to only half the land inheritance to which her brother is entitled, while the brother is obliged to financially maintain his sister (although this obligation is often not observed). The Hindu tradition accords no land to women in inheritance custom. As a result of discrimination, malnutrition levels show a marked gender disparity, with women most profoundly affected in rural areas.34 C. Absence of agrarian reform and rural development policies, including irrigation and seeds 31. To protect the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, more attention needs to be paid to agrarian reforms that benefit landless peasants and small-scale land holders and promote security of tenure and access to land. 35 Agrarian reforms are successful when land reform radically reduces inequalities in land distribution and is accompanied by sufficient access to other inputs, including water, credit, transport, extension services and other infrastructure. 32. While the “death” of agrarian reform was proclaimed in the 1970s, and few efforts were made to conduct land reform programmes in the 1980s and early 1990s, land reform returned to the international agenda in 1996. In the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action, land reform was a key part of States’ commitments.36 In the Declaration of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Brazil in March 2006, 95 States recognized the importance of establishing appropriate land reform to secure access to land for marginalized and vulnerable groups, and of adopting adequate legal frameworks and policies to promote traditional and family agriculture. 37 33. Land reforms in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China, China and Cuba have had a significant impact on reducing poverty and hunger and increasing economic growth. In India, the states with the steepest declines in poverty from 1958 to 1992 were those that implemented land reform. 38 More recently, the move towards 33 34 35 36 37 38 10 Foodfirst Information and Action Network, The Human Right to Food in Guatemala, 2004. International Monetary Fund, Bangladesh: Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, No. 03/177 (Washington, D.C., 2003). A/65/281. See FAO, Report of the World Food Summit, 13–17 November 1996 (WFS 96/REP), part one, appendix. FAO, Report of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, 7–10 March 2006 (C 2006/REP), appendix G. IFAD, Rural Poverty Report 2001.