A/HRC/13/32 42. But refugees from hunger are not migrants. They do not move voluntarily, but out of a state of necessity (A/62/289). They are forced to flee. Especially when famine strikes a whole country or a whole region (for example the 2005 famine in the Sahel zone of subSaharan Africa), refugees from hunger have no other choice but to flee across international borders. Hunger is an immediate threat to their lives and those of their families. They should therefore be protected, not rejected. The need to strengthen protection for people forced to leave their homes and land because of hunger was recognized by the General Assembly in its resolution 62/164 on the right to food. G. Other vulnerable groups 1. Indigenous people 43. Indigenous people face exclusion and discrimination that have an impact on their right to food. In Guatemala for instance, while half of all Guatemala children under the age of 5 are stunted, malnutrition is much higher among indigenous children, with 70 per cent stunted in their growth compared to 36 per cent of non-indigenous children (E/CN.4/2006/44/Add.1). 44. The right to food of indigenous people often depends closely on their access to and control over their lands and other natural resources in their territories. The fact that their right to food is so frequently denied and is so much related to their traditional way of living explain why a number of indigenous organizations have expressed their deep concerns over the obstacles and challenges that their communities face in fully enjoying this right. As stated in the Declaration of Atitlán, at the First Indigenous Peoples’ Global Consultation on the Right to Food in April 2002, in Guatemala: The denial of the right to food for indigenous peoples not only denies our physical survival, but also denies us our social organization, our cultures, traditions, languages, spirituality, sovereignty, and total identity; it is a denial of our collective indigenous existence. 2. Minorities 45. Hunger and malnutrition are largely explained by unequal power relations that systematically disadvantage minorities. As Sylvie Brunel has noted: From the beginning of time, in the history of humankind, minorities (political, ethnic or religious) have always been the first to suffer from hunger, in the same way that all populations, victims of a status considered inferior, find themselves placed on the bottom rung of the social ladder.26 III. Anti-discriminatory policies and strategies A. The question of land and agrarian reform 46. To realize fully the right to food, more attention needs to be paid to agrarian reform that benefits landless peasants and small-scale land holders and promotes security of tenure and access to land. 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, 26 12 S. Brunel, “La Faim dans le monde ; comprendre pour agir”, 1999, p. 11.