A/HRC/16/63
people living from hunting activities, by the creation of development projects; and
pastoralists, by conflicts with farmers over land and water resources. All together,
these people constitute 80 per cent of the world’s hungry. Women alone represent 70
per cent of the world’s hungry; peasant women are particularly affected by hunger
and poverty, largely as a result of discrimination in access to and control over
productive resources, such as land, water and credit.
69.
To overcome this situation, there is a need to give more attention to agrarian
reforms that benefit small-scale land holders and promote security of tenure and
access to land, in particular for women. There is also an urgent need to ensure that
Government policies are sufficiently well formulated in order to address the needs of
the most vulnerable people working in rural areas. A better implementation of the
human rights instruments protecting the rights of peasants and other people working
in rural areas, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, is also urgently needed. The
right to land should be recognized in international human rights law.
70.
The above measure will not, however, be sufficient. To further advance the
rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, there is a need to elaborate
a new international human rights instrument. Such an instrument – initially, a
declaration – should recognize in a single instrument the rights enshrined in other
international instruments, to increase coherence and visibility. It should also recognize
new rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, such as the rights to
land, seeds and the means of production. The elaboration of this instrument, with the
full participation of peasant farmers, small landholders, landless workers, fisher-folk,
hunters and gatherers and all other stakeholders would be one of the best ways to
overcome centuries of discrimination against the most vulnerable groups working in
rural areas.
21
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