Publication type: News

CEDAW Chad: Women excluded in decision making on land

Posted on by Tom

The African Peace Center (Centre Africain de la Paix) with the support of FIAN International has submitted a parallel report on Chad to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

According to the report, the arrival of Perenco in 2022 has resulted in widespread human rights abuse. Perenco acquired land in the area with the support of the authorities and without respecting the community’s customary land rights. Women in the community were not consulted in decision regarding access to and control of the land. They were also excluded from land compensation discussions.

Additionally, the activities of Perenco, including dumping toxic waste, destroyed agricultural land. The area saw an upsurge in illnesses, particularly respiratory and skin diseases. The contamination of water and soil affects women in the area, who are responsible for collecting water and preparing meals. Furthermore, food shortages have aggravated malnutrition among children and pregnant women. Young girls are often forced to drop out of school and enter early marriages.

In its concluding observations, CEDAW noted with concern that discriminatory patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes restrict access for rural women to decision-making, as well as ownership, control and use of land.  

It also noted the lack of equal participation of women in decision-making on water resource management and rural development plans. The committee recommended Chad to integrate and mainstream a gender perspective into all agricultural and rural development strategies and plans and enable rural women to act and be visible as stakeholders, decision-makers and beneficiaries.

In addition, it said that Chad should dismantle patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotypes that impede equal access to land for rural women and promote their access to education, health services and adequate water and sanitation.

Read the full Chad CEDAW parallel report here.

For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

Supermarket Watch supports local food struggles

Posted on by fredsaxo

 

Supermarket Watch began a decade ago at a time when supermarkets and convenience store chains were expanding faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world and rapidly changing the face of Asian food markets. They undermined the region's long tradition of fresh food markets, which provide consumers everywhere in Asia with vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and all kinds of healthy, prepared foods, and were supported by government policies to support that growth.

The supermarketisation of food markets is now well advanced in the Americas and Europe, and is  slowly spreading in Africa, from South Africa and a few countries in North Africa to the rest of the continent, prompting an expansion of this bulletin's scope by its editors and authors in GRAIN, FIAN International and StreetNet International.

Supermarkets do not just push out traditional, local markets. They have dramatic impacts on people's diets and the ways in which foods are produced. They marginalize locally produced food and encourage the consumption of ultra-processed “food products”. In countries such as Mexico, where supermarkets and convenience stores have taken over food markets, we see a paradox where millions of people suffer from hunger or malnutrition while at the same time millions of others are affected by obesity, diabetes and other food-related illnesses.

Fortunately, there is a growing, strong resistance to this supermarket expansion. People in different places around the world are organizing to defend food distribution systems and local markets that are rooted in the community. They are taking actions against laws and regulations that undermine the presence of fresh food markets and harass and criminalize street and market vendors. Public markets that were once a decentralized space for street and market traders, have become battlegrounds for economic justice and livelihood.

In this context, we believe it is critical to share information emanating from the struggles of small farmers and food producers, street and market vendors, and cross-border traders around the world and to deepen connections between these struggles to help foster a global movement.

We hope the bulletin will continue to serve as a tool for social movements in defense of food sovereignty!

Read the latest issue here.

For more information contact Laura Michéle michele@fian.org

FIAN's road ahead in global struggle for the right to food

Posted on by fredsaxo

Ana Maria became secretary general of FIAN International earlier this year, taking over from Sofía Monsalve whose long tenure transformed the organization, linking its mission to critical global issues from climate change to digitalization, financialization, conflict and care work.

She has extensive experience of international advocacy, including more than two decades at FIAN International, most recently serving as the organization’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva. 

How do you see your role as FIAN secretary general?

I see my role as providing strategic leadership to advance the right to food and nutrition globally in line with FIAN’s strategic plan. Over 23 years, I have learned from peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fishers, scholars, policymakers, and others.

I will use all those learnings, following the inspiration of Sofía Monsalve, our former secretary general, to provide strategic leadership to the organization in tackling threats to the right to food. This includes revealing false solutions in the context of food systems transformation and just transitions and amplifying people’s solutions such as agroecology and food sovereignty.

In times of uncertain geopolitical change, my role also consists of leading our organization to create a critical mass that resists, denounces, provides alternatives and strengthens collective advocacy. I also aim to guide FIAN so we continue accompanying the defense of communities affected by systemic human rights violations – including through our case work and deepening ties with social movements, particularly youth, to challenge inequalities in food systems.

What are the main challenges ahead and how will FIAN face them?

Amid multiple global crises — climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, wars, and drug trafficking — that deepen hunger, poverty, and inequality, we face an additional challenge: the rise of authoritarian governments dismantling public institutions, prioritizing profit over people and polarizing societies. These movements threaten the post-war consensus enshrined in the UN Charter: peace, human rights, and social progress, and hinder progress toward fair, healthy and sustainable food systems and just transitions.

Our newly adopted strategic plan provides clear goals to respond to these challenges within FIAN’s mandate. With its six thematic struggles and eight strategic tools, it offers a roadmap for action.

What difference can FIAN make in the global struggle for the right to food?

For almost 40 years, FIAN has been deeply committed to advancing people’s struggles for the right to food, addressing oppression by states and non-state actors and tackling power imbalances. What sets FIAN apart is its case work – advocating with communities for their right to food, while bridging local struggles to global policies and governance.

FIAN’s facilitation skills strengthen the right-to-food movement, connecting diverse actors across regions and sectors while fostering solidarity and collective power. This work is crucial for driving change, especially under authoritarian regimes, as recognized by allies and sections. Facilitating in such a diverse ecosystem requires openness to learn from all actors equally, critical analysis of mainstream solutions, and strategic dialogue coordination. Though often invisible, the facilitation work we do is essential for building bridges and strengthening collective action in environments that respect and value diversity.

Our persistence, capacity to collaborate with others, creativity, and the commitment of each person engaged in FIAN, continue to be invaluable for strengthening the right to food movement and achieving transformative change worldwide.

How optimistic are you about the prospects of advancing the right to food in the current climate?

Despite the challenges, there is much to celebrate: the 20th anniversary of the UN Right to Food Guidelines saw progress in implementation. FIAN Colombia secured constitutional recognition of the right to food, Ecuador’s peasants won landmark cases on the right to land and Uganda saw reduced military violence against fishers after years of advocacy. Our efforts, alongside many allies, to increase corporate accountability are bearing fruit, with steps toward a binding instrument to address the harms of Big Food, Big Tech, Big Agro and major financial actors.

I also believe that progress in recognizing the human rights of future generations offers new avenues to combat environmental crises and promote justice. And our work on food care is highlighting important paths for gender equity and dismantling patriarchal practices that harm women and LGBTQIA+.

These steps, though small, represent meaningful progress. Walking them in solidarity brings us closer to a world where food systems prioritize people and the planet over corporate interests.

For more information please contact Ana Maria Suarez Franco: suarez-franco@fian.org

 

FIAN Blog: The struggle against the pseudo food making us and our planet sick

Posted on by fredsaxo

While many transnational corporations promote themselves as part of the solution to hunger, malnutrition and the environmental crises, civil society and social movements around the world are protesting against their increasing domination and capture of food governance spaces.

Corporate lobbying of authorities and takeovers of international institutions are making it harder to hold them to account.  

Corporate tactics

The agri-food giants which dominate our food systems use different tactics – including sponsoring, researchers, media and UN fora – to influence parliaments, governments and courts to hamper better regulation of UPFs and information to enable people to choose real, nutritious food.

Examples include blocking laws establishing front-of-package labels to warn people about harmful products, fighting laws to tax sweetened beverages that aim to reduce consumption and opposing efforts to foster access to real food and drinking water. This lobbying causes immense public health costs with as much as 60 percent of household food budgets going toward this junk food in many countries – notably in poorer communities worldwide.

It is time for governments to comply with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the comprehensive legal framework on the right to food and nutrition. They must protect public interests over private profits by introducing adequate measures to curb corporate interference.

Curbing corporate power

Such measures should include regulations blocking companies with vested commercial interests from participating in food regulatory and policy processes along the lines of the UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It is also important to ensure the effective participation of civil society – notably groups affected by hunger and malnutrition – in food governance spaces, not only to discuss but also to decide. 

Without clear rules on corporate accountability and for civil society participation, we will not be able to reverse a trend that will have a massive toll on the health and lives of millions of people and on nature and biodiversity today and in the future.  

Civil society activists, movements and everyone concerned about food can raise their voice to reject corporate capture and industry-promoted food policies and instead advocate for real solutions to healthy and sustainable eating.

Bottom-up solution

Agroecology provides a bottom-up solution from peasants and small hold farmers that is already in place in many communities. This approach contributes to reducing pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change – as well as ensuring the availability of real food that actually nourishes people and is affordable for all.

As corporations face the new tariff war set in motion by the US president, they will use all available tools to protect their interests. Civil society and everyone who cares for people and the planet must join forces to defend the public interest, human dignity and the environment. United we can work to hold our authorities accountable for respecting everyone’s right to food, health and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

For more information, please contact FIAN International Secretary General Ana Maria Suarez Franco suarez-franco@fian.org

Nyéléni process: Waves of resistance. Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

Posted on by fredsaxo

In a rapidly changing world, beset by war and billionaire oligarchs, fishing livelihoods remain ignored in policy discussions. US President Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ agenda, worldwide extractivism, neo-protectionist nature enclosure through 30by30 (Global Biodiversity Framework), government-backed aquaculture expansion, and profit-driven mega projects continue eroding fisher peoples’ territories and livelihoods.

The rise of the radical right has led some governments to reduce or eliminate development aid,  and philanthropy holds greater sway in determining what and who gets support, further deteriorating the funding landscape. As NGOs and fisher movements increasingly rely on funding from philanthropy, this can lead to co-optation of some organizations’ political agendas and create division between those maintaining food sovereignty principles and those following funder-directed focuses like 30by30, ‘blue foods’ and ‘blue transformations’[1].

Fisher movements must unite to discuss political positions and tactics. Following the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty’s (IPC) decision to avoid endorsing the UN Food Systems Summit, similar positions may be needed on other imposed agendas. Fisher movements need to set their own agenda, and actively shape the direction of the larger food sovereignty movement. The Nyéléni Global Forum in September 2025 in Sri Lanka offers such an opportunity: to put fisheries on the agenda, build solidarity with other small food producers, food workers and climate movements, and advance the food sovereignty struggle.

FIAN International, GRAIN, IPC working group on fisheries, TNI, WFF, WFFP

Read the Nyeleni Newsletter No.52 here or download

Illustration : Rosine Nsimire (Alliance pour la vie), Alessandro Musetta – Agathe, the matriarch above the water is a mixed-media digital publication documenting the experiences of artisanal fisherwomen from Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Fisherfolk in Uganda welcome decreased army brutality

Posted on by fredsaxo

Since the President of the Republic of Uganda directed the People’s Defense Force to combat illegal fishing, a special Fisheries Protection Unit has been systematically violating the human rights of small-scale fishermen and women through unlawful arrest, physical assault and destruction of property, including burning boats and fishing gear. Several fishermen were reportedly killed in 2020.

This army brutality has denied many small scale fishers access to Uganda’s extensive lakes, jeopardizing their human right to adequate food and nutrition. Despite the Minister for Fisheries affirming that the army will continue its operations in late 2023, a year later the Ugandan parliament ordered the fisheries ministry to implement the Fisheries and Aquaculture Act of 2022, which replaces armed forces with a non-military Monitoring, Surveillance, and Control Unit.

Advocating for rights

Recognizing the issues faced by fisheries communities, FIAN Uganda has embarked on a mission to advocate for their rights and dignity over the last five years. It implemented a multi-faceted strategy that included organizing community dialogues, conducting human rights trainings and sensitisation, engaging the media to highlight the plight of affected individuals, and supporting communities in writing petitions and letters to authorities and directly engaging and working with policy makers to influence fisheries and food policies in the country. The challenges facing fishing communities have also been highlighted in CEDAW and UPR parallel reporting to UN treaty bodies and the UN Human Rights Council.

“The concluding observations from CEDAW and the UPR have requested the State of Uganda to investigate and hold accountable state security agents and members of the police and army who have committed human rights abuses as well as ensuring adequate compensation for victims,” says Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International

FIAN Uganda’s work, together with other partners, has benefited more than 5,000 men and women in fisheries communities through human rights trainings and dialogues over the last five years. While the trainings were aimed at creating awareness about human rights and what constitutes violations – particularly of the right to food and nutrition – the dialogues were principally aimed at bringing all actors to the same table to discuss the challenges faced by fishing communities and how to solve them.

Progress

These dialogues fed into legal framework discussions, including the amendment of the fisheries bill and its subsequent passing into law in 2023 and the tabling of a long-awaited food and nutrition bill. Today, although the army remains present on the lake, incidents of brutality and human rights violations have decreased. Efforts are underway to fully establish the Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance Unit, as mandated by law. This unit will be composed of personnel appointed by the Public Service Commission to facilitate the complete withdrawal of the army.

“These achievements are the result of a strong mobilisation of communities to directly engage with policy makers and bring their lived experiences to the policy tables,” says Dr. Rehema Namaganda Bavuma, Coordinator of FIAN Uganda.

 For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

CESCR: Rural women call for justice and an end to eco-destruction in Honduras

Posted on by fredsaxo

Lily Mejía from FIAN Honduras and a community leader from the Golf of Fonseca region will meet the Committee. They will also participate in an interactive dialogue on the impact of loss and damage from the adverse effects of climate change on the full enjoyment of human rights at the Human Rights Council’s 57th session.  

Rising sea levels and recurring floods

The community leader accompanied by FIAN Honduras is from a small fishing community whose livelihoods and right to food and nutrition have been severely affected by the adverse impacts of climate change and eco-destruction. Rising sea levels and recurring floods are destroying people’s homes and businesses and endangering people’s health and lives. The sea is slowly eating up the village: in some parts, up to 100 meters of coastline have been lost in little more than a decade (see diagnostic on impact of climate change). Extreme weather events are also placing limits on fishers’ ability to go out to the sea to fish, sometimes reducing their catch and income to zero. The community also has to cope with pollution from industrial shrimp farming – an export industry strongly promoted by the Honduran government and operating with little government scrutiny or oversight.

A combination of rising water temperatures and contamination have caused fish stocks to decline, with native fish and clams disappearing entirely or becoming rare. All of this has a dramatic impact on the right to food and nutrition of community members who depend on these for their livelihoods and for subsistence and have few alternatives for income generation. The situation is similar in other coastal communities. As a consequence, many people are emigrating and families are torn apart. 

Government action is urgently needed to protect and support rural communities in the Gulf of Fonseca and other regions of the country in the context of climate change and environmental pollution. Currently, the government is notably absent, with communities left to themselves. In addition to the environmental challenges faced, the communities lack access to natural resources and technical and financial support as small-scale artisanal food producers and small entrepreneurs, while at the same time they face discrimination and exclusion with regard to markets and social protection systems. These and other human rights challenges as well as the proposals by rural communities – and especially rural women – are summarized in FIAN Honduras and FIAN International’s submission to the CESCR for the review of Honduras.

For more information contact Laura Michele: michele@fian.org

Food and climate crises: Right to Food and Nutrition Watch

Posted on by fredsaxo

Industrial food systems have failed to meet the nutritional needs of our planet's population. Close to 800 million people face hunger today. Our food systems produce a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, contributing massively to the climate crisis and exacerbating access to food and nutrition. The mass extinction of species, destruction of ecosystems and disruption of the natural cycles that sustain life on Earth further affects access to food.

Extractivism, commodification and financialization of nature have exacerbated exploitation, dispossession and violent evictions. The increasing control of natural resources by a small number of powerful corporations, individuals and states is also fuelling gender-based violence, intersecting forms of discrimination, and mounting inequality.

People's Ecological Alternatives to Corporate Greenwashing from the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition proposes a different way forward based on grassroots struggles against corporate capture, greenwashing and neocolonial practices. It promotes the right to food and adequate nutrition, the human rights of peasants and other people in rural areas, and food sovereignty for all.

It is divided into four sections examining international developments, food and the triple ecological crises, green colonialism and decarbonization, and grassroots struggles and solutions to the climate and food crises.

Despite the worsening food crisis, there was little decisive international action during 2023 to address its causes. Instead, corporate capture of international fora, notably at the UN, continued unabated. The food and triple ecological crises of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution are inextricably linked, yet corporations and states promote similar technological solutions for each and fail to address the rights of small-scale food producers.

In recent years, decarbonization and related market-oriented approaches have been imposed as the main paradigm in addressing these intertwined crises. But this green neo-colonialism simply perpetuates eco-destruction and the commodification of nature, while deepening existing inequalities.

A just eco-social transformation of our food systems that protects everyone's right to food and nutrition requires global justice and the fostering of food sovereignty, harmony and balance between humanity and the environment.

For more information or media interviews, please contact Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.com

 

 

UN Human Rights Council appoints members of new Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas

Posted on by fredsaxo

In October 2023, during its 54th session, the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 54/11, establishing a new Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas, comprising five experts from the five UN regions. The selection process for these experts took place from mid-October to early December 2023.

The 5th of April 2024, during its 55th session, the UN Human Rights Council officially appointed the five experts (who were selected among 48 applicants):

  1. Ms. Uche Ewelukwa OFODILE (Nigeria) for African States.
  2. Ms. Shalmali GUTTAL (India) for Asia-Pacific States.
  3. Mr. Davit HAKOBYAN (Armenia) for Eastern European States.
  4. Mr. Carlos DUARTE (Colombia) for Latin American and Caribbean States.
  5. Ms. Geneviève SAVIGNY (France) for Western European and other States.

The imminent initiation of the Working Group’s activities marks a significant milestone in advancing the implementation of the rights enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). This achievement is of particular importance to rural organizations advocating for their rights, including small-scale farmers, rural women, herders, artisanal fishers, landless agricultural workers, pastoralists, rural workers, nomads and Indigenous Peoples.

Rural communities have endured prolonged injustices concerning rights protection and access to social security systems, exacerbated by the dominance of the agribusiness sector in industrial food systems. This domination not only exposes them to heightened vulnerability to exploitation and repression but also obstructs their fundamental rights – among others, their right to land, seeds, food sovereignty, biodiversity, means of production – necessary to advance towards autonomy in dignified work. Furthermore, the establishment of the Working Group underscores a commitment from States to safeguard the rights of rural individuals and communities.

The newly appointed Working Group holds great promise for the promotion and implementation of the rights of rural communities, providing crucial support for their initiatives aimed at realizing these rights. Additionally, it will play a pivotal role for States, offering them technical cooperation, sharing examples of good practices, and providing concrete recommendations on the best ways to make their actions and national legal frameworks comply with the principles and provisions of the UNDROP. Since the adoption of the Declaration by the UN General Assembly in 2018, some States have made progress in implementing UNDROP at the national level. However, there has been a lack of institutional monitoring of its implementation at the international level. Moreover, the structural causes that led to the adoption of UNDROP, including various forms of discrimination, systematic human rights violations, and historical disadvantages, have persisted without adequate attention. In light of these challenges, the Working Group will be instrumental in facilitating the implementation of UNDROP. It will identify and promote best practices and lessons learned, foster collaboration between States’ authorites, rights holders and UN experts, and provide technical capacity-building support. By doing so, the Working Group aims to elevate the global prominence of UNDROP and address the underlying issues hindering the realization of rural communities’ rights.

What are the challenges facing the Working Group?

The primary challenge confronting the Working Group revolves around financial constraints, with limited funding available to adequately support its operations.

In addition to financial challenges, there are also operational challenges related to the engagement and participation of peasant and rural organizations. These organizations, in collaboration with their allies, must take ownership of the new mechanism, recognize and acknowledge its utility; disseminate it in respective networks; be able to explain the procedure; and develop strategies to use and feed it. This requires resources, capacity building, and coordination efforts.

Moreover, there may be challenges related to visibility, as peasant and rural organizations need to be prepared to actively contribute to the Working Group’s efforts. This includes duties such as submitting reports and complaints about violations and engaging with respective State authorities in the spaces provided.

By doing so, this involvement can help to increase the visibility of peasants, who are frequently marginalized in society, strengthen their dignity, and further foster their participation in local, national, and global governance.

Download the Fact Sheet on UNDROP  Working Group to learn more about its mandate.

By La Via Campesina, Fian International, CETIM

This article was first published on La Via Campesina’s website on April 8th, 2024 here.

On International Women's Day, who cares for the caregivers?

Posted on by fredsaxo

Care work consists of essential activities to guarantee the life of people, living beings and the planet. It has been historically carried out by women, based on the sexual division of labor in a framework of patriarchal power relations, which also meant that it has been largely invisible or low status. Paid and unpaid care work has led to and reproduced discrimination, gender inequalities and violence.

Privilege and oppression are power dynamics that intersect in caregiving contexts and relationships. Race, class, ethnicity, and other social identities intersect with gender to shape experiences of caregiving. To craft genuinely caring politics, we must acknowledge that care work includes many aspects of life from the individual perspective of self-care to the care of households and communities.

What is Food Care?

Care work includes food care: for what we eat, how we eat, who eats and when.  

Food systems, like care work, also rely on interdependent relations. Rural women’s care work is crucial to food production, processing, distribution and access. This interdependence also raises questions around redistribution, autonomy, sovereignty over bodies, love, relations, resources and life itself. Food is an act of love. And so is care.

The corporate food system anchors this interdependence in unequal power relations, with harmful consequences such as the homogenization of diets, the loss of biodiversity and the exploitation of unpaid care work done by the vast majority of black, indigenous, peasant, fisherwomen and rural women.

Why should we care?

The current system of production, distribution and consumption of food and other goods overexploits the productive and reproductive work of women, causing deep inequalities and sickening human beings and the planet.  

Rural women represent one third of the global population but 36% of the agricultural labor force yet earn 20% less than men. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, more than 20% of agricultural employees in Latin America and the Caribbean are women. Also in that region, women spend three times as much time on domestic work and unpaid care compared to men. In addition, there is a significant gap between women in urban and rural areas, with the latter spending three to ten hours more on daily care work than women in urban areas. 

Hegemonic narratives around care in food systems fail to look beyond recognition of these facts and leave aside the redistribution and representation of the agency of rural and indigenous women who produce food. Likewise, food systems see food only as the act of distribution and supply, ignoring all the care work that is behind real peasant-produced food.

There is a strong link between informal labor and the marginalization and impoverishment of rural and indigenous women. They are considered the most vulnerable group in society, as they mainly work as unpaid laborers on family farms with low pay, hazardous conditions, and without social security coverage. They face multiple obstacles to independence and economic autonomy. In contexts of crises, rural and indigenous women are most affected by poor access to resources, services and information, as well as by the heavy burden of care work and discriminatory traditional social norms.

In the current context of multiple and interrelated crises, a radical transformation of industrial food systems and the urgency of a transition to just, healthy, sustainable, and violence-free food systems is crucial. The feminist agenda and the right to food and food sovereignty agenda need each other more than ever to face the magnitude of current challenges. Reciprocity and cross-pollination should be the hallmarks of the strategy ahead for both living beings and the planet. Food, care, self-care and community care must be at the core of a much needed paradigm shift.

How can we care?

Social movements and civil society can help to push forward the care paradigm by:

  • Putting the human rights of caregivers at the center of the global care agenda.

  • Raising awareness of care work around food by peasant, indigenous and rural women. 

  • Collectively building action tools to position care in the political agenda.

  • Generating processes of mutual care and self-care relationships.

  • Advocate for the recognition and redistribution of care and domestic work, as well as remuneration and representation of care workers or caregivers.

For more information or media interviews please contact Amanda Cordova Gonzales at cordova-gonzales@fian.org