A/HRC/13/32 Annex Declaration of Rights of Peasants - Women and Men Document adopted by the Via Campesina International Coordinating Committee in Seoul, March 2009 Peasants of the World need an International Convention on the Rights of Peasants, I. Introduction Almost half of the people in the world are peasants. Even in the high-tech world, people eat food produced by peasants. Small-scale agriculture is not just an economic activity; it means life for many people. The security of the population depends on the well-being of peasants and sustainable agriculture. To protect human life it is important to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the peasants. In reality, the ongoing violations of peasants' rights threaten human life. II. Violations of Peasants' Rights Millions of peasants have been forced to leave their farmland because of land grabs facilitated by national policies and/or the military. Land is taken away from peasants for the development of large industrial or infrastructure projects, extracting industries like mining, tourist resorts, special economic zones, supermarkets and plantations for cash crops. As a result, land is increasingly concentrated in a few hands. States neglect the farm sector and peasants receive inadequate income from their agriculture production. Monocultures for the production of agrofuels and other industrial uses are promoted in favor of agribusiness and transnational capital; this has devastating impacts on forests, water, the environment and the economic and social life of peasants. There is an increasing militarization and a number of armed conflicts in rural areas with severe impacts on the full realization of civil rights of peasants. As they lose their land, communities also lose their forms of self-government, sovereignty and cultural identity. Food is increasingly used for speculation purposes. The peasants' struggle is criminalised. Slave labor, forced labor and child labor are still found in rural areas. Women's and children's rights are the most affected. Women are victims of psychological, physical and economic violence. They are discriminated in their access to land and productive resources, and marginalized in decision making. Peasants have lost many local seeds. Biodiversity is destroyed by the use of chemical fertilizers, hybrid seeds and genetically modified organisms developed by the transnational corporations. 23