A/HRC/13/32 54. The declaration adopted by La Via Campesina reaffirms the rights to life and to an adequate standard of living (art. 3); the right to freedoms of association, opinion and expression (art. 12) and the right to have access to justice (art. 13). In addition, it recognizes new rights that could reinforce the protection of peasants against discrimination. These include the right to land and territory (art. 4); the right to seeds and traditional agricultural knowledge and practice (art. 5); the right to the means of agricultural production (art. 6); the right to information and agricultural technology (art. 7); the freedom to determine prices and markets for agricultural production (art. 8) ; the right to the protection of local agricultural values (art. 9); the right to biological diversity (art. 10); and the right to preserve the environment (art. 11). D. Legal and social protection of rural women 55. Because the sustainability of food supplies and income-generation are limited by lack of credit services and market access, rural areas particularly carry the burden of high levels of physical activity to ensure food availability.34 Women improve the food security of their household through (a) their access to income-generating activity and (b) through ensuring food availability. Technologies designed to meet women's needs have proven particularly useful in increasing productivity and shortening physically demanding labour to help relieve women in their heavy burdens.35 Alternative sources of cooking fuels have proven to shorten preparation and storage of foods and decrease the need for daily firewood collection, for example. Equitable rights to land for women in both developed and developing countries point to 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. 56. The right to control, access, and manage land is tied to a woman's right to exercise financial independence, earn a livelihood, and subsequently provide a livelihood for herself and her household. Agrarian reform policies which are 'gender-blind' continue to exclude women from entitlements to land.36 States undergoing agrarian reform or land redistribution schemes must uphold the equal right of women to land, regardless of marital status. Women usually do not have their names on land-use certificates (whether jointly with their husbands or individually), which decreases their ability to apply for mortgage or credit. Many rural women, as documented systematically in Sub-Saharan Africa, envisage the legal difficulty that they cannot hold title to land, although they are given the right to till the land and erect a home on a piece of land allocated to the household head.37 Countries that have adopted CEDAW have strengthened the legal framework of equality with respect of the human rights of women by repealing laws deemed discriminatory to women. However, elimination of discrimination against women requires not only changes in institutions, laws and regulations, but more importantly cultural practices that are part of the process that creates and perpetuates such discrimination. Governments must show political will to 34 35 36 37 FAO, “Women, Land Tenure, and Food Security” in Women: The Key to Food Security,Rome, 1995. T. Paris et al.,“Assessing the impact of participatory research in rice breeding on women farmers: a case study in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India”. 44 Experimental Agriculture 1 2008; T. Paris T and T.T. Chi “The impact of row seeder technology on women labor: a case study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam”,9 Gender, Technology and Development 2) 2005 FAO. Gender Food Security: Synthesis Report of Regional Documents, Rome, 2004. T. Tekle, Women's Access to Land and Property Rights in Eritrea. Towards Good Practice: Women's Land and Property Rights in Situations of Conflict and Reconstruction; Sebina-Zziwa, et al. Patterns and Trends of Women's Participation in Land Markets in Uganda, Makerere Institute of Social Research,; Rose, L. L. "Women's Strategies for Customary Land Access in Swaziland and Malawi: A Comparative Study" 49 Africa Today 2, 2002, pp. 123-149. 15