Public Panel

Public Debate: 10 Years After the Committee on Food Security (CFS) Reform

Civil Society Forum 2019, Rome, Italy 12-13 October, 2019

Azra Talat Sayeed

Women Constituency, Civil Society Mechanism (CSM)

The main thrust of the intervention was:

The Committee on World Food Security is facing many problems. These problems include the struggle between powerful countries such as the United States and China. The main economic paradigm used by various political actors is based on neoliberalism and hence policies of deregulation, privatization and trade liberalization are pushed. Huge corporations are being helped through the implementation of these policies to control our resources, labor and markets.

Women are half of the world’s population and immensely impacted though this fight for resources. So the demands that are resonating from the women of the world include control over resources. Land rights remain at the heart of our demands as women are by far the largest segment that is landless in the world. The corporate capture of land is resulting in immense land grab across countries, especially in the continents of the third world. As part of the control over resources land grab is top most; even rich countries, land scarce and food scarce countries are grabbing land. And hence instead of women being given priority in land titles, it is the corporate sector, which is controlling thousands of acres of land across our continents. Result is massive evictions of our people, especially the indigenous people who are being hunted and forced to leave their ancestral lands.

At the same time its not only land that women demand, they also demand access and control over all reproductive resources. It is clear that fisher women, pastoralists and others don’t necessarily need land rights but must have control over production, and the resources needed for production. Its also clear that women demand access and control over markets.

The current fight over resources is having a huge impact on the lives of women and face continuous violence. But this is not only physical violence, which is what is considered most. They also face constant economic violence as they paid less and even after all the work they have done, they have no control over their earnings. Therefore, patriarchy has a huge role in controlling the lives of women. Women are the ones who go hungry; in Pakistan women and children are the biggest segment who are part of the anemic and malnourished. Finally, they also face political violence as they are not part of the political decision-making

Women are at the fore front of demanding agroecology as a form of production to over come many forms of violence in their lives. One is that it allows them to grow wholesome healthy food free from the poisons of industrial chemical food production system. However, it needs to be reiterated that there can be no agroecology without land distribution in favor of women. Agroecology is also the way ahead to fight climate crisis.

Its critical that women’s rights are held paramount. Currently, very weak policies and strategies are used to dilute women’s rights. For us, empowerment of women is not equal to women’s rights; we are empowered and don’t need such platitudes. We demand to be considered equal and our inalienable rights to be recognized, promoted ad implemented.