Peasants, fisherpeople, pastoralists, herders, Indigenous peoples, rural workers and rural peoples are central actors in transforming food systems and building pathways toward global food sovereignty. Safeguarding their rights is therefore key for the future of humanity and a sustainable planet.

A fundamental tool to protect their rights is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas – UNDROP. It provides a robust framework to guide public policies, laws, and programmes that uphold rural peoples’ dignity, livelihoods, and futures.

The Defending Peasants’ Rights is a global platform for rural organisations and constituencies to share knowledge, amplify struggles, and build collective power for the implementation of their rights worldwide.

La entrada International Day of Peasant Struggles! – 17 April se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

CETIM and La Via Campesina were in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to closely monitor the proceedings of the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference (26–29 March 2026). CETIM and LVC advocate the dismantling of the WTO, as its paradigm is based on a deeply asymmetrical economic and trade architecture that serves the interests of transnational capital to the detriment of local peoples and economies, particularly in the Global South.

The Ministerial Conference concluded without a final declaration or the reform that had been announced. The majority of issues, including agriculture, e-commerce and investment facilitation, were referred back to Geneva due to a lack of consensus. Many participants attribute this failure largely to the strategy of the United States, which made any negotiations conditional on the adoption of a permanent moratorium on tariffs related to e-commerce, causing significant tensions, particularly among countries in the Global South. Disagreements on this issue, as well as on other priorities such as food security and intellectual property rules, stalled the negotiations. This failure thus confirms the analysis that the WTO is now largely paralysed, incapable of producing decisions conducive to fair and equitable trade development, and underscores the need for a fundamental rethinking of the international trading system towards a truly democratic framework that does not marginalise the voices of the peoples and countries of the Global South.

The Yaoundé Declaration, which we reproduce below and which was published by La Via Campesina, highlights the systemic effects of a trade model that subordinates food to the logic of profit, accelerates the marginalisation of small-scale food producers and undermines peoples’ sovereignty over their food systems. Against a backdrop of geopolitical, economic and environmental crises, increased dependence on global markets appears not only as a dead end, but as a factor exacerbating the structural vulnerabilities that oppress people.

In the face of this multidimensional crisis, LVC’s Yaoundé Declaration aims to offer hope by proposing a structured institutional policy alternative. By affirming food sovereignty as a fundamental principle, it calls for a rethinking of international trade based on the primacy of human rights, solidarity among peoples and respect for ecosystems. In line with the principles enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), this new framework has to uphold and reinforce the recognition of peasants’ rights to land, seeds, biodiversity and food sovereignty, among others. It thus calls for agriculture to be removed from the WTO and for the current WTO framework to be transcended in order to build a new trading system that serves the self-determination of peoples.

Read the Yaoundé Declaration

Read CETIM’s communiqué prior to the Ministerial Conference: The WTO at a deadlock: Will the Ministerial Conference save it?

La entrada Yaoundé Declaration: The WTO And Free Trade Cause Hunger, Poverty And Inequality se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Since taking power through a coup d’état in September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré has assumed the presidency of Burkina Faso, leaving no one indifferent: for some, he embodies a historic turning point marking a break with the neo-colonial order and the beginning of a popular pan-African revolution; for others, it is yet another despotic show of force orchestrated by a military regime. This article seeks to provide an original perspective, in light of the balance of power at play, by giving a voice to Burkinabè social movements – peasants in particular.

Burkina Faso has for years faced a situation of war, mainly in the north, under jihadist threat, and since 2022 has been subjected to increased international pressure, manifested through sanctions regimes imposed by France, the World Bank, the European Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Heir to a long colonial past and illegitimate debt, the Traoré government seeks to restore national sovereignty and to position itself within a new pan-African dynamic.

Together with its partners in the Alliance of Sahel States – Mali and Niger – the country is challenging the CFA franc and considering an independent or common currency, while progressively disengaging from the IMF, the World Bank and the BCEAO (Central Bank of West African States). The refusal of new Western loans signals a desire to break free from financial dependency.

On the economic front, Burkina Faso has embarked on a process of nationalising strategic sectors. In 2023, the state regained control of major gold mines. A new mining code adopted in 2024 strengthens sovereignty over resources, increases the state’s share in mining companies, imposes local processing and creates a strategic gold reserve. In 2025, a mining residue treatment centre was inaugurated.

Economic reconquest also encompasses the agri-food sector, through nationalisations and the industrialisation of factories in sugar production, dairy processing and tomato production/processing, a key sector for the country. Despite a conflict-ridden regional context, these choices constitute essential levers for establishing real sovereignty and strengthening the state’s capacity to finance social policies.

Giving a voice to peasants

In Burkina Faso, 80% of the active population works in agriculture (around 32% of national GDP), and nearly 90% of farms are family holdings of less than five hectares, illustrating the predominance of subsistence agriculture. This shows how central small-scale food producers – peasants, nomads, herders and artisanal fishing communities – are to society.

It is in this light that the government launched its “Agropastoral and Fisheries Offensive 2023–2025”, with the objective of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty. Within this framework, numerous investments have been made: agricultural equipment, local processing infrastructure, and support for cereal, rice and horticultural sectors. The results are tangible: tomato, rice and maize production increased considerably between 2022 and 2024, and since then rural exodus has declined¹.

Beyond the figures, it is the commitment of rural communities that stands out. Long marginalised, they now form the core of the new societal project, recognised as political agents of change. Two grassroots leaders, Mr Alassane Nakande (a key figure in the West African Convergence of Struggles for Land and Water² and executive director of the African Movement for Environmental Rights) and Ms Ouédraogo Ouandegma (president of the Burkinabè Coordination of Peasant Organisations, member of La Via Campesina and of the Agropastoral Workers’ Union) testify to the profound changes under way. These changes, particularly the progress achieved, help promote a peasant agenda consistent with the provisions and principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), which recognises fundamental rights such as the right to land and the right to seeds.

Strengthening local peasant production

For Ms Ouandegma, the initiative to protect and promote local production “is positive, in that it concretely supports peasant organisations in consolidating their means of production, supply chains, peasant cooperatives and local markets”. The peasant representative points to “government efforts” which have “enabled access to tools and materials for agricultural production and processing (rice processing units, tractors…)”. Thanks to this initiative, “it is small producers and local peasant cooperatives that directly supply their products to hospitals, municipalities, school canteens, prisons… This has made it possible to implement short supply chains, open markets to the smallest producers, and promote local products”.

Land policy and the right to land

Historically, Burkina Faso has faced large waves of land grabbing by private and financial operators who have benefited from a vague and permissive legal framework. In response, Mr Nakande notes that “thanks to the authorities’ willingness to tackle this phenomenon through the revision of pro-land-grabbing laws, a better redistribution of land is becoming possible”. The peasant leader adds that these legislative changes are “accompanied by support measures, notably in the form of installation kits for young peasants”. The process is part of “a broader logic of strengthening food security and sovereignty”, with other ongoing initiatives – action research, feasibility studies, concrete measures – aimed at “enhancing the role of agricultural producers and restoring their central place in public policies”.

For her part, Ms Ouandegma states that the authorities’ land policy “helps strengthen security and legal recognition of land tenure rights for women and men peasants”. She also welcomes the government’s commitment to allocate at least 30% of land titles to women producers.

Agroecological policies

In the field of agroecology – a key concept and set of practices promoted by the international peasant movement – Mr Nakande notes that “within the National Assembly and the Senate, a joint commission has been created to address the challenges surrounding the promotion of agroecology. In the same vein, a law has been adopted promoting the use of biological inputs”.

In its national strategy (SND-AE 2023–2027), the Burkinabè government supports the intensification of agroecological practices, in collaboration with peasant organisations, in order to sustainably ensure food and nutritional security in a context marked by climate crises – declining rainfall, soil and water resource degradation, loss of biodiversity, droughts, floods, etc.

Another major agroecological initiative concerns the demand, expressed by rural actors, for the gradual abandonment of chemical pesticides. To this end, new spaces for negotiation and advocacy have been opened. Ms Ouandegma notes a “shared willingness, both on the part of the rural movement and the authorities, to resolutely steer the country towards a tangible agroecological transition”.

Protection of peasant seeds

Regarding phytogenetic resources and the protection of peasant seeds, Mr Nakande observes positive developments. First, with the “creation of a Commission dedicated to phytogenetic resources, which provides a political framework enabling work in favour of peasant proposals”. Secondly, with the adoption of a new agropastoral law recognising the status of farmer/peasant and strengthening the protection of the right to seeds. “This law lays the foundations for a favourable framework for seed conservation, notably through the establishment of a dedicated database”. For the peasant representative, this represents a real qualitative leap: “From now on, each peasant will be able to actively participate in preserving the local food system and maintaining biodiversity”.

A dialectic at work

It is clear that the peasant world must constitute a political force at the heart of Burkina’s process of social, economic and political transformation. This transformation will either take place with their involvement, or it will not take place at all. But it should be recalled that any process of political transformation is inevitably accompanied by dialectical trajectories, marked by internal tensions and constant contradictions. All the more so in a country like Burkina Faso. Yet the vast majority of external analyses tend to ignore this complexity of power relations, in favour of Manichean and decontextualised judgements, often Eurocentric.

Any transformative political process that claims to be progressive requires democratic debate. Internal as well as external criticisms – if constructive and free from any imperialist logic – can and must help steer this process towards genuine popular emancipation, and correct its course where necessary. What is happening in Burkina Faso is an unprecedented attempt at pan-African renewal, centred on a self-reliant and self-determined development model – a turning point on a continent that continues to endure the neo-colonial yoke. In this context, the Traoré government enjoys considerable popular support, particularly from social movements in rural areas and from the youth, who reject neo-colonial fatalism and demand national and popular sovereignty.

This is not about idealising. But, in a world still structured by deep neo-colonial relations of domination, any attempt at national liberation deserves to be examined and supported, especially if it is driven by the popular classes and grassroots social movements. In such processes, the only meaningful safeguard against setbacks is a didactic dialogue between popular forces and the government. The ongoing challenge for CETIM is therefore to remain a platform for popular sovereignty, rooted in the support of the popular masses, and not isolated from them.

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La entrada Burkina Faso: The peasantry, a seed of change? se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

A new communication initiative has recently been launched in Colombia with the aim of bringing academic knowledge closer to the general public. It is a podcast series led by the Institute of Intercultural Studies and the Specialisation in Agrarian Jurisdiction at Universidad Javeriana in Cali, in partnership with the Observatory of Rural Lands. The initiative seeks to transform recent research into accessible and engaging content, expanding the reach of key debates on the rights of rural peoples.

On air for about a month, the project embraces clear language and multimedia formats to engage with peasant organisations, rural workers, Indigenous communities, pastoralists, and fisherpeople. The initiative publishes around two pieces of content per month, combining audio and written formats, making specialised knowledge more accessible to diverse audiences.

The topics addressed are rooted in the Colombian context but go beyond national borders. Episodes include reflections relevant to Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as global analyses, such as land concentration and its social, economic, and political implications. In this way, the podcast establishes itself as a space for the circulation of critical knowledge on contemporary agrarian issues.

Readers and interested audiences from different regions are invited to explore and follow this initiative. Episodes, available in Spanish and English, can be accessed at https://soundcloud.com/carlos-duarte-44 and https://www.observatoriodetierras.org/podcast/, while written publications are available at https://www.observatoriodetierras.org/publicaciones/. This is a valuable opportunity to engage with current debates in more inclusive and accessible formats.

We particularly highlight the latest episode, which examines the current state of discussions on governance, access, and inequality in access to land at the global level, broken down by analytical regions. Available in English and Spanish.

La entrada From Colombia to the World: A Podcast Bringing Peasant Rights Research to Wider Audiences se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Indigenous Peoples And Social Movements Reaffirm Unity And Support To ICARRD+20 Organisers, But Reject Conference Declaration

By La Via Campesina (28 February 2026)

PRESS RELEASE | CARTAGENA DE INDIAS, COLOMBIA

At the closing session of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), Indigenous Peoples and social movements, represented by the International Planning Committee for food sovereignty (IPC)*, issued a strong political statement affirming their “irreducible unity” in the face of ongoing attacks on their rights.

The movements expressed appreciation for the Government of Colombia and Brazil for bringing agrarian reform back into the agenda of the international policy dialogue, and for including their voices in the conference process. They also highlighted the need for Global South governments and peoples to stand united in defense of international law and human rights, noting that Iran is currently facing what they describe as another imperialist attack.

The IPC statement reaffirmed that the rights of Indigenous Peoples and peasants are firmly recognized under international law, including instruments adopted by the United Nations General Assembly such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). The IPC rejected any attempt to roll back these recognised rights.

A central concern raised was the conflation of Indigenous Peoples with the vague concept of “local communities”, repeated multiple times in the declaration of governments presented to the plenary. While acknowledging the importance of the Conference, the movements stated that they “cannot accept the declaration” adopted at its conclusion. They committed to continued engagement in follow-up processes to ensure that their rights are respected, protected, and guaranteed.

Indigenous Peoples organisations articulating through the IPC under the International Indian Treaty Coouncil (IITC), emphasised that the three UN mechanisms on the rights of Indigenous Peoples have clearly distinguished the unique characteristics, origins, and legal status of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and warned that grouping them with undefined communities undermines those protections. Similar concerns were expressed for fisher peoples, nomadic pastoralists, peasants, rural workers, and mobile and artisanal communities whose territorial and mobility rights must be explicitly recognized.

The declaration called for a 21st-century agrarian reform that is inclusive of Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisher peoples, pastoralists, women, youth, gender-diverse people, Afro-descendant communities, family farmers, and rural workers. It stressed that agrarian reform must go beyond land redistribution to encompass forests, oceans, rivers, grazing lands, and migratory routes. Redistribution, Recognition, Restitution and Regulation must form the mutually reinforcing axes of an intergal agrarian reform – speaking to the different realities that exists worldwide. Food sovereignty and agroecology, they affirmed, must be central pillars of this transformation. The strategy and the concrete steps towards a transformative agrarian reform are laid out in the IPC position paper launched ahead of ICARRD+20.

The statement concluded with a call to all governments to engage in good-faith dialogue on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, the rights of fisher peoples and nomadic pastoralists, women’s rights, and agroecology.

“Agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and social, agrarian, and environmental justice will only be achieved through struggle”, the declaration affirmed. “We are going home to organize our peoples and defend the future of our communities and Mother Earth”.

* WHO WE ARE: The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty

The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) is an autonomous and self-organised global platform of small-scale food producers and rural workers organisations and grassroots/community-based social movements whose goal is to advance the Food Sovereignty agenda at the global and regional level.More than 6000 organizations and 300 millions of small-scale food producers self-organise themselves through the IPC, sharing the principles and the 6 pillars of Food Sovereignty as outlined in the Nyeleni 2007 Declaration and synthesis report. 

The IPC facilitates dialogue and debate among actors from civil society, governments and other actors in the field of Food Security and Nutrition, creating a space of discussion autonomous from political parties, institutions, governments and the private sector.

The legitimacy of the IPC is based on the ability to voice the concerns and struggles that a wide variety of civil society organisations and social movements face in their daily practice of advocacy at local, sub-national, regional and global levels.

View the closing statement

View the IPC position paper in the three languages

View the LVC briefing note on agrarian reform

Collaborative interview on the conclusions of ICARRD+20 and the Forum of Peoples and Social Movements (Spanish only)

La entrada The outcomes of the ICARRD+20 from the perspective of rural and indigenous movements se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Held in the context of the UN Working Group’s latest report, which focuses specifically on rural peoples’ right to participation, the discussion explored how this right—far from being a procedural formality—constitutes a cornerstone of democratic governance and a central pillar of rural peoples’ civil and political rights. The webinar created a space for exchange between grassroots actors and international human rights mechanisms, strengthening bridges between local struggles and global advocacy.

The webinar placed the findings of the UN Working Group’s report at the centre of the discussion, examining:

• The democratic and political significance of participation under UNDROP
• Barriers that prevent rural communities from influencing public decision-making
• The Working Group’s recommendations to States
• Practical strategies and good practices that enhance meaningful participation
• The role of collective advocacy and solidarity in advancing implementation

Panellists:

• Carlos Duarte, Current Chair of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
• Loupa Pius, World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous People (WAMIP)
• Modesta Arevalos Ortiz, International Federation of Rural Adult Catholic Movements (FIMARC)
• Jones Spartegus, World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP)
• Norah Mlondobozi, Rural Women Assembly (RWA)
• Saúl Vicente, Unidad de la Fuerza Indígena y Campesina (UFIC – Mexico)
• Paula Gioia, La Via Campesina (LVC)

Through their interventions, the panellists shared regional experiences, community perspectives, and movement strategies for strengthening participation at local, national and international levels.

We invite you to watch the recording and engage with this important dialogue as part of the broader collective effort to ensure that those who feed the world and protect its ecosystems are fully included in shaping the policies and decisions that determine their future.

Webinar held on 10 December 2025.

La entrada Video of our Webinar | Nothing About Us Without Us – Realising the Right to Participation of Rural Peoples and Workers through UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

(Cartagena: February 23, 2026) On the eve of a historic intergovernmental conference on agrarian reform and rural development, nearly 300 delegates from worldwide representing peasants, Indigenous Peoples, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, and rural workers – organized through the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) – have arrived in Cartagena for the ‘Forum of Peoples and Social Movements: United for Land, Water, Territories and Dignity, being held from 22-23 February at Hotel Almirante, Cartagena de Indias.

This autonomous space serves as a critical staging ground for our global social movements to unify our voice before the second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) begins on February 24, where all the IPC members will be actively participating in the official plenaries and panels.

Two decades after the first International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD), the crises surrounding land, water, forests, and oceans are intensifying as resources are increasingly concentrated, commodified, and degraded.

The first ICARRD, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2006 with the participation of states from all continents, underscored the importance of redistributive agrarian reforms. It was also a milestone in the history of the United Nations as it set in motion a democratic process that allowed for strong and self-organized participation of organizations representing peasants, landless people, Indigenous Peoples, artisanal fishers and fish workers, pastoralists, workers, and other rural communities.

Twenty years later, ICARRD+20 offers a historic opportunity to reaffirm the importance of agrarian reform and rural development, to take stock of transformative examples of agrarian reform, to update the meaning of agrarian reform, and to forge a shared vision for popular, feminist, decolonial, and eco-social transformation. We demand from states and international institutions not another round of voluntary pledges but real commitments and concrete, binding, and measurable actions for structural change.

Since 2006, we have successfully campaigned for significant global normative frameworks, including the Tenure Guidelines (2012), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP, 2018).

These international human rights instruments affirm that states have the duty to ensure equitable access to and control over land, fisheries, forests, and water as part of the realization of their rights to food, water, housing, work, health, and an adequate standard of living.

Yet, the implementation of policies, programs, and mechanisms that assure the rights of rural peoples and strengthen rural development remains profoundly inadequate.

States, UN institutions, and peoples’ organizations must collectively assess what has and has not been done. Renew political will to apply these existing instruments and confront the systemic barriers that block their realization. Translate the obligations and commitments of states, as well as human rights principles, into redistributive public policies that place territories under the control of those who feed, protect, and care for the world.

At the center of our movements’ demands is a holistic understanding of territories.

Unlike the narrow, technocratic view of land as a “factor of production,” the IPC views territories as living spaces that embody the spiritual, cultural, and material basis of a people’s sovereignty. To defend territory is to defend the cycles of care and renewal that sustain the planet.

Our collective vision for an “Integral and Feminist Agrarian Reform” is rooted in the 4Rs framework:

• Recognition: Respecting and protecting collective and customary tenure systems, particularly for Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities.
• Redistribution: Ensuring the equitable transfer of land, power, and wealth to landless peasants, women, and youth, while placing caps on corporate land ownership.
• Restitution and Reparation: Restoring control to those dispossessed by colonization, conflict, and forced evictions, including the settlement of historical debts to Indigenous nations.
• Regulation: Implementing strict public interest regulations to limit the influence of market forces and financial speculation on natural resources.

In this regard, our core demands and proposals toward ICARRD+20 are the following:

• Acknowledge Root Causes: States must conduct an honest assessment of the structural drivers of the current crisis, including the failures of market-based reforms and the impact of militarization and occupation.
• Commit to Structural Transformation: Reject the commodification of nature and move toward public policies that shift power from corporations to people – with special attention towards women, youth and gender-diverse and sexually-diverse peoples.
• National Policy Implementation: Develop comprehensive, gender-sensitive agrarian reform plans that prioritize the rights of women, youth, and landless workers – especially from historically oppressed castes and groups.
• Corporate Accountability and Financial Justice: End corporate resource grabs and “definancialize” land and water, removing them from the logic of speculative markets.
• Strong Monitoring Mechanisms: Strengthen the role of the CFS in monitoring the implementation of the Tenure Guidelines and the outcomes and commitments of ICARRD+20. Outcomes of ICARRD+20 should be reported to all relevant UN institutions, including the UN Human Rights System, the Rio Conventions (CBD, UNFCCC and UNCCD), UNCTAD, IFAD, UNDP etc. Establish international, national and regional observatories to monitor progress and reform the FAO’s Global Land Observatory into a participatory platform for community-led data.

Our position paper captures these demands in its full nuance and detail. (English, Spanish, French)

The struggle for agrarian reform today is inseparable from the struggle against ecological collapse and imperialist expansion. In Cartagena, the world’s social movements are standing firm:

Peoples’ control over land, water, and territories, NOW! Popular Agrarian Reform, Now!

Below is the Forum’s Declaration

La entrada ICARRD+20 must move beyond technocratic fixes to implement real, integral agrarian reform: Global Social Movements in Cartagena se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Human beings depend on care; societies and economies depend upon unpaid and paid care work to function.¹ Unpaid care work is mostly provided within households or families and contributes an estimated US$11 trillion to the global economy each year. More than three quarters of this unpaid care work is performed by women and girls², and this restricts their choices and opportunities, adversely affecting a wide variety of human rights, including the rights to work, social security, education, health, rest and leisure.³ Rural areas are often underserved, in terms of social and public infrastructure, transportation, childcare and health services, increasing the unequal share of unpaid care work⁴ performed by women and girls, further impacting the full realization of their human rights.

In our goal towards universal freedom, dignity and equality, and considering the complex variables and challenges rural women and girls encounter, it is vital that a human rights perspective be used to recognise and redress the realities faced by them.⁵ International human rights law can be a useful tool in this regard. Drawing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), particularly Article 14, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), this article analyses the normative gaps and opportunities within international human rights frameworks to address this systemic issue faced by rural women and girls in relation to the unpaid care work they perform. The article concludes by advocating for legal and institutional reforms, grounded in an intersectional approach, to advance the rights of rural women and girls.

What is “unpaid care work”?

Unpaid reproductive labour can be described using various terms, depending on disciplinary perspectives and research interests⁶, including unpaid domestic and care work, domestic labour, social reproduction, care work, caregiving, familial care, unpaid caregiving, and affective labour.⁷ For this article, the term ‘unpaid care work’ will be employed per the definition articulated during a roundtable convened in November 2022 by the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, heads of UN agencies, and external experts:

‘Unpaid care work refers to services provided within a household or community for the benefit of its members without remuneration. It includes both direct care for people, such as children, family and community members, older persons or persons with mental or physical conditions, persons with disabilities, and indirect care, such as cooking, cleaning, washing, collecting water and fuel, and household management, including tending to animals and livestock and agricultural work for own consumption, as well as transportation and travel. This work also encompasses unpaid voluntary community care work, like community kitchens and peer support.’⁸

Factoring in unpaid care work is crucial, considering that every day, 16.4 billion hours are spent on it. When valued at hourly minimum wage, it amounted to 9 per cent of global GDP, which corresponds to US$11 trillion. Women and girls perform 76.2 per cent of this work, accounting for almost 12.5 billion hours. In no country in the world do men and women provide an equal share of unpaid care work, and based on region, women can spend anywhere between 1.7 times more (the Americas) to 4.7 times (the Arab States) on unpaid care.⁹ Even when one considers total work (paid and unpaid work), women, on average, across 82 countries, spend an extra 38 minutes each day. This gap in total work between men and women may seem minor, but it has several repercussions and consequences and cannot be ignored.¹⁰ For instance, gender divisions in care responsibility limit women’s access to decent work. In 2023, 708 million women, as opposed to 40 million men, aged 15 and above, cited care responsibilities as the reason for being outside the labour market.¹¹

Rural women’s unpaid care work: a triple responsibility

Rural women account for approximately 22% of the global population¹², nearly a quarter. Although not a globally homogenous group, and with only a few exceptions, rural and indigenous women fare worse than rural men, and their respective urban equivalents on every indicator for which data is available.¹³ The barriers and opportunities they face vary across their lifetimes and their circumstances, and are influenced by their location, socio-economic status, identity, ethnicity, political identity, citizenship status, and other factors.¹⁴ Furthermore, apart from the region, farming system and other changing conditions like seasons, markets, and climate, the lives of these women are often affected by changes occurring in the lives of their male counterparts. Some of these include seasonal changes in tasks leading to labour peaks, men’s migration or off-farm employment, which results in women taking over agricultural production and marketing, household purchases, and social and community duties.¹⁵ Rural women like smallholder farmers, livestock keepers, fishers, and so on, simultaneously manage triple responsibilities. As part of a paid workforce, they can be wage workers, self-employed individuals, or contribute to the family business, performing a variety of tasks in agricultural production and operations, marketing, and maintenance. Household tasks include caring for the children and the elderly, collecting firewood, cooking, fetching water and so on. Community work is linked to preserving culture and tradition, including organising for religious ceremonies and other such functions like funerals, weddings, community service, etc. ¹⁶ In developing countries, rural women’s tasks often add up to a 16-hour day.¹⁷

Unpaid care work is most intensive, and disproportionate for girls and women living in rural areas of low and middle-income countries because of the lack of basic services and infrastructure, such as adequate access to a water supply, sanitation, financial services, electricity, roads, safe transportation, time-saving technology, education, health care and other social protection policies and services. Climate change and other extreme weather events also increase household drudgery (limited availability of firewood, water scarcity, etc.) and have negative impacts on the health of family members, who would then require additional care.¹⁸

This exacerbated unpaid care work constrains rural women’s opportunities for better-paid work. In coping with household poverty, they are left to find work within the informal economy, which is often precarious and poorly paid. Unpaid care work cannot be reduced or outsourced by market substitutes like purchasing ready-made foods or hiring care workers. Furthermore, because of discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes, these tasks cannot be distributed to men and boys. Often, unpaid care work is delegated to older children, particularly daughters, which might eventually jeopardise their education and other opportunities. This invariably creates a trap where they are likely to face both income poverty and time poverty¹⁹, alongside other deprivations like education, health, and so on, thereby inhibiting the ability of societies to achieve gender equality.²⁰

CEDAW AND UNDROP: two main instruments for rural women rights

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against (CEDAW, 1979) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP, 2018), are to this day the two main international law instruments used in the defence of peasants and rural women’s rights.

Article 14 of CEDAW was the first international treaty provision to explicitly recognize the rights of rural women. It affirms their right to participate fully in community life and in the elaboration and implementation of development planning at all levels. It also guarantees their ability to organize self-help groups and cooperatives to secure equal access to economic opportunities, and to benefit from agricultural credit and loans, marketing facilities, appropriate technology, and equal treatment in land reform and resettlement schemes. Building on the rights already enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966), Article 14 broadens these protections by tailoring them to the realities of rural women, explicitly recognizing their rights to adequate health care, social security, training and education, and to decent living conditions – including housing, sanitation, electricity, water, transport, and communications.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), adopted after more than 17 years of intense lobby by La Via Campesina and its allies, framed peasants and rural women as individual and collective rights-holders and dedicated a specific article to their rights. Indeed, Article 4, built on CEDAW’s heritage, reaffirmed the rights mentioned in Article 14, deepening rural women’s equal rights to land and natural resources, participation in decision-making and the necessary protection from all types of violence.

Filling the gaps in the recognition of rural women’s unpaid care work in the corpus of international human rights law

The CEDAW argues for a de facto, i.e. substantive equality²¹ directed at addressing the root causes of (gender) inequality embedded in society. While progressive for its time, CEDAW missed an opportunity in articulating unpaid care work as a form of discrimination, offering a narrow interpretation that limits care work only to ‘sharing of childcare responsibilities.’ It treats maternity-related responsibilities as exceptions rather than the norm, inadvertently reinforcing stereotypes where care becomes a woman’s role. Additionally, Article 11 on the right to work does not acknowledge unpaid care work as a limitation in accessing paid employment, while associating work only with paid, productive opportunities, thereby ignoring unpaid care work as work.²²

Like CEDAW, UNDROP too reiterates the emphasis to ensure women’s substantive equality, however, more nuanced feminist claims, like redressing the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work performed by women, were diluted because the UNDROP reinforced the “traditional” language from CEDAW which did not lead to newer inclusions and most notably many States firmly opposed the elaboration of a strong and ambitious language for this article 4.²³

However, further examination and interpretation of CEDAW and UNDROP’s provisions allow to recognise and create formidable opportunities for the redressal of the disproportionate impact of unpaid care work has on (rural) women.

In August 2013, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Magdalena Sepúlveda, put forward a report that analysed ‘the relationship between unpaid care and poverty, inequality and women’s human rights.’ While pointing out the gender discriminatory nature of unpaid care work in households, the Special Rapporteur highlighted the relational nature of care work; the rights of caregivers and care receivers are intertwined. She further emphasised that care work is not a matter for the private sphere but one that needs to be assessed by a broader social lens while requiring immediate State intervention. The report highlights that unpaid care work affects several economic, social and cultural rights, especially of the caregivers (mostly women and girls in vulnerable societies). These rights include the right to work, rights at work, the right to education, the right to health, the right to social security, the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress (as a result of the lack of basic infrastructure and technology), the right to participation, and the right to rest and leisure.

Soon after, in March 2016, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women released their General Recommendation No. 34 on the rights of rural women, expanding the provisions of Article 14 of CEDAW, while reiterating the State’s duty to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of rural women. The document recognised the unpaid work burden of rural women and girls due to ‘stereotyped gender roles, intra-household inequality, and lack of infrastructure and services, including with respect to food production and care work.’ The document points out State failure in acknowledging ‘the role of rural women and girls in unpaid work, their contribution to the gross domestic product’ while closely linking it to ‘the macroeconomic root of gender inequality.’²⁴ Amongst other things, the General Recommendation advises State parties to adopt gender-responsive social protections for rural women engaged in unpaid and informal work, put in place programs that reduce the engagement of rural girls in unpaid care work, provide childcare and other such services to alleviate unpaid care work burdens rural women face, and lastly ensure environmentally sound and labour saving technologies be developed in consultation with rural women and should be available and accessible to them, to reduce their burdens.²⁵

The 2013 report by the Special Rapporteur and the General Recommendation No. 34 help establish a foundation, going beyond Article 4 of the UNDROP and Article 14 of the CEDAW, in the reconciliation of the rights of rural women and girls, regarding the unpaid care work they perform.

A progressive recognition of unpaid care work on rural women’s economic, social and cultural rights

Discriminatory gender stereotypes like “male breadwinners” and “women as carers/nurturers,” deem women as second-class citizens belonging in the home. Such stereotypes cause and perpetuate this unequal distribution of work.²⁶ Like the CEDAW, the UNDROP also condemns any kind of discrimination on the grounds of sex, social or other status, while directing States to eliminate conditions that perpetuate discrimination (Article 3). Article 5(a) of the CEDAW advises States to take measures ‘to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct […] on stereotyped roles for men and women.’

Stereotypical assumptions coupled with chronic time deficits due to intense workloads limit opportunities to participate in decent employment.²⁷ Furthermore, women and girls from rural communities have limited opportunities in the formal labour market, and can be at special risk of violence, sexual exploitation and harassment when they seek employment outside their localities.²⁸ In rural areas, the gender pay gap can be as high as 40 per cent.²⁹ Article 11 of the CEDAW and Article 13 of the UNDROP establish the right to work of rural women. Interestingly, Article 13.2 focuses on the right of children to be protected from work that is likely ‘to interfere with the child’s education […]’ thereby, protecting ‘girls (who) are sometimes taken out of school to undertake unpaid care work.’ ³⁰ Article 10(f) of the CEDAW reestablishes the duty of the State to protect girls/women in such situations. Article 13.2 also gently establishes the right to education of rural girls, which is further expanded in Article 25 of the UNDROP and Article 10 of the CEDAW.

Unpaid care work inhibits a ‘women’s capacity to participate in public life […| in important decision-making processes at the community and national level.’ ³¹ Article 7 of the CEDAW, along with Article 10 of the UNDROP, reinforces rural women’s right to participate in ‘political and public life’ and in the ‘preparation and implementation of policies, programmes and projects that may affect their lives, land and livelihoods’ respectively.

Rural women and girls are most affected by water scarcity, which is further fuelled by the lack of access to basic infrastructure and services, including water and sanitation facilities. This exacerbates unpaid care work since they must dedicate a huge amount of time, often walking long distances, and sometimes risking violence to fetch water.³² Article 21 of the UNDROP establishes rural people’s right to water and directs States to ‘respect, protect and ensure access to water […] in particular for rural women and girls […]’. ‘Various forms of low-cost and effective technology exist that could ease the burden’ of water collection.³³ Article 21.1 of the UNDROP established the right to water supply systems and sanitation facilities, while Article 21.3 directs States to ‘promote appropriate and affordable technologies […] for water collection and storage.’ Tacitly, these statements underline rural women’s right to the benefits of scientific progress since governments rarely make investments in the development of infrastructure that can reduce the intensity and duration of unpaid care work.³⁴

Unpaid care work often forces women into precarious and informal jobs that are insecure, hazardous, poorly paid and not covered by social protection schemes like paid parental leave, unemployment insurance, or pensions.³⁵ Social protection measures can be protective, preventive, promotive and transformative³⁶ to rural women, but poor rural women not only lack access to information but also basic identification documents that could help them access such services.³⁷ The UNDROP directs States to recognise rural peoples’ right to social protection (Article 4.2(c) and Article 22). This is further strengthened by Article 11.1(e) and 11.2 (focused on maternity entitlements) of the CEDAW. The lack of infrastructure and services in rural areas can also mean that unpaid care work can be taxing (physically and emotionally), stressful, and even dangerous. Exposure to disease, risk and challenges from cooking and water collection can compromise the physical and mental well-being of rural women. Additionally, time and income poverty can hinder access to health services, especially in areas that are underserved by health services.³⁸ Article 12 and 14.2(b) of the CEDAW, read along with Article 23 of the UNDROP, validate rural women’s indiscriminatory access to healthcare.

Out of the several rights pointed out by Special Rapporteur Ms. Sepúlveda that are impacted by unpaid care work, there is no mention of the right to rest and leisure, both in the UNDROP and the CEDAW. However, these rights do find a place within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 24) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 7).

The above exercise of building and expanding on the normative framework of the human rights impact unpaid care work has on rural women and girls, helps pave ‘the way for care being increasingly seen today as a public policy issue as opposed to a private issue, as a social and economic issue, and as critical to thriving and just societies.’³⁹

A slow but growing recognition of rural women’s unpaid care work as a policy issue

It has been only in the last three decades that (unpaid) care work has started becoming a visible policy issue.⁴⁰

In September 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action linked the lack of public services to women taking on unpaid work and thereby impacting the economic rights and employment of women. Furthermore, in its objective to eliminate occupational segregation and employment discrimination, it directed governments, employers, employees, trade unions and women’s organisations to ‘address the excessive demands made on some girls for unpaid work in their household and other households.’⁴¹

In 2013, the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS), with its standard-setting agenda in labour statistics, which is hosted by the International Labour Organisation, revised the definition of work to encompass unpaid care work. This definition states that work is ‘any activity performed by persons of any sex and age to produce goods or to provide services for use by others or for own use,’ where one of the five forms of work is ‘own-use production work.’ Own-use production work includes activities performed to produce goods or provide services mainly for the worker’s own final use or household consumption, and include: producing or processing agricultural and other products (including collecting firewood, etc.), fetching water, manufacturing household goods, building or repairing dwellings, household management including purchase and transport of goods, preparing and serving meals, cleaning and maintaining the household, and childcare, elder care and other such responsibilities.⁴²

In 2015, one of the Sustainable Development Goals, target 5.4, aimed to ‘recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate.’⁴³ In August 2023, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 29 October as the International Day of Care and Support, ‘to raise awareness of the importance of care and support and its key contribution to the achievement of gender equality and the sustainability of our societies and economies…’ In July 2024, the Economic and Social Council adopted a resolution, the first of its kind that was solely focused on care and support, which urged States to create ‘enabling environments for promoting care and support systems for social development and implement all measures necessary to ensure the well-being and rights of care recipients and caregivers…’⁴⁴

However, despite the growing recognition of the value of (unpaid) care work, and the fact that in the past 20 years, men have never been more involved in family life than they are at present, change comes at a glacial pace. Data from 23 countries reveal that with current progress, closing the gender gap in unpaid care work is likely to take around 210 years (i.e. not until 2228).⁴⁵ It becomes even more concerning since at all levels, rural women’s rights and needs continue to remain ignored or overlooked in laws, policies, investments, etc.⁴⁶

Nevertheless, there have been promising signs. In October 2023, the Human Right Council adopted a resolution that expressed ‘concern that the difficulties, intensity and gendered distribution of unpaid care work create and perpetuate inequalities in the enjoyment of human rights… in particular for women and girls in vulnerable situations, women and girls in contexts of poverty, migrant women, rural women, Indigenous women…’ It further stresses ‘the need to adopt measures, with an intersectional approach’ in recognising, reducing and redistributing unpaid care work.⁴⁷ The resolution resulted in a comprehensive thematic study prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the analysis of international human rights standards relevant to care and support. For comprehensive and integrated legislation and policies, one of the five-part conceptual framework is to recognise not only the rights but also the ‘the diversity and intersectionality⁴⁸ of the identities’ of care providers.⁴⁹

Introducing intersectionality into a human rights issue offers ‘transformative potential,’ while becoming ‘a tool for equity’ through a contextual programmatic approach. Furthermore, it helps connect ‘international human rights instruments through one lens,’⁵⁰ facilitating the human rights systems in overcoming its siloed thinking and structures where there specific instruments are used to address for discrimination affecting a group (women, migrant workers, persons with disabilities, etc.), rights categories (civil and political, and economic, social, and cultural), and phenomena (racial discrimination, torture, etc.).⁵¹

Intersectionality maps the role that characteristics like race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, migrant status, and poverty play in creating a reinforcing web of disadvantages.⁵² Rural spaces are shaped by policy interventions and omission choices that carry human rights implications, while intersecting with other identities such as gender, race, disability, age and so on, to produce distinct experiences of structural inequality and discrimination.⁵³ Additionally, there is an assumption that rural life mirrors the characteristics of urban life, resulting in a ‘metronormativity’ that fails to address the lived realities of rural life, creating further obstacles and exacerbating violations, ⁵⁴ herein creating grounds for discrimination, drawn from space and geography. Rurality then becomes an axis of inequality and needs to be added to the canon of intersectional identities. ⁵⁵

In the past, human rights instruments have not engaged with rurality as an intersecting axis of inequality affecting the rights set out in the foundational human rights treaties. ⁵⁶ Then there is the fact that rural girls and women are too often invisible⁵⁷ and continue to ‘face systematic and persistent barriers to the full enjoyment of their human rights.’⁵⁸ It is here, then, that Article 14 of CEDAW and the UNDROP (especially Article 4) come to our rescue, bringing both rurality and women to the law’s attention, expanding existing human rights norms and practices to explicitly include and apply to rural people.⁵⁹ These instruments recognise the ‘marginalization that rural women already experience by virtue of the physical geography…’⁶⁰ offering a sense of spatial justice, to ‘advance frames and solutions that identify and transform structural inequality related to space and geography.’⁶¹

It must be noted that UN systems tend to acknowledge rural differences within the context of (i) underdevelopment, deprivation, or limited access to services and resources, and (ii) conditions in developing countries. ⁶² Plus, progress and challenges reported under Article 14, focus on women’s roles in agriculture, access to services such as health care, education, and job creation and training. ⁶³ Although it is important to address these implications, they are framed in neutral terms and seldom clarify how such dynamics specifically affect rural livelihoods, as we have seen with the lack of recognition of the unpaid care work done by (rural) women and girls.

Conclusion

Still, Article 14 of the CEDAW, the UNDROP, General Recommendations like No. 34, thematic reports such as that by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Human Rights Council resolutions like the one in October 2023 can be used to challenge and prompt law and policy makers to consider the relevance of the rural axis, and the needs of rural women and girls concerning infrastructure and the delivery of key services, such as health care and education. ⁶⁴ As Hilary Charlesworth points out, the ‘rights discourse offers a recognized vocabulary to frame political and social wrongs.’ ⁶⁵ By simply introducing the concept of rural as an intersection in policy design, it can prove critical in the implications of the impact it has on individuals, communities and societies.⁶⁶

In doing so, one can, for example, leverage the ILO’s 5R framework, which recommends that policies should recognise, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care work; reward paid care work; and guarantee representation for care workers through social dialogue and collective bargaining⁶⁷ to find innovative solutions to addressing rural women’s needs. For example, cash structures can shake-up or undermine, the rigid hierarchy of power and social structures⁶⁸ as seen in Brazil’s Bolsa Família program, where gender transformation was observed in urban areas with respect to the autonomy of women in making various household decisions. However, in rural areas these effects were either absent or negative, possibly even reinforcing typical gender norms by requiring mothers to fulfil traditional responsibilities while at the same time excluding men from participation.⁶⁹ In such cases, innovative complementary approaches like engaging religious and community leaders to promote a change in social norms for better recognition, reduction and redistribution of women’s unpaid work, exploring pay-as-you-go model to facilitate access to modern energy and technologies for domestic and productive uses, offering group insurance memberships to rural women networks and cooperatives for reduced premiums, capacity building interventions to improve technological literacy to access financial services, seek relevant information, and find new market opportunities, and so on, may prove to be more successful.⁷⁰

Ultimately, the normative developments surveyed in this article suggest that international human rights law offers a meaningful repertoire of legal tools through which rural women and girls can articulate claims, contest structural inequalities, and demand accountability. Politically, when these frameworks are invoked through collective organizing, strategic litigation, shadow reporting, and participation in policy-making spaces, they can serve as leverage to bring visibility to unpaid care work, contest its gendered tone, and reframe it as a matter of rights, redistribution, and public responsibility. Advancing such claims requires strengthening legal literacy, supporting rural women’s movements and networks, and fostering alliances across feminist, agrarian, labour, and human rights struggles. In this sense, the effective realization of rural women’s rights in relation to unpaid care work depends not only on the progressive interpretation of international norms, but also on their active appropriation by those most affected, transforming law from a declaratory framework into a site of social and political change.

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14Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and World Food Programme, Rural women and girls 25 years after Beijing (n 2).

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16 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Addressing Women’s Work Burden: Fact Sheet (Rome, 2016), available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5586e.pdf (accessed 10 April 2025) ; Flavia Grassi, Josefine Landberg and Sophia Huyer, Running Out of Time: The Reduction of Women’s Work Burden in Agricultural Production (n 5).

17Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Addressing Women’s Work Burden: Fact Sheet (Rome, 2016); citing World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and International Fund for Agricultural Development, Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook (Washington, D.C., 2009).

18 Laura Addati, Umberto Cattaneo, Valeria Esquivel and Isabel Valarino, Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work (n 11).

19Time poverty is broadly understood as the lack of time needed for individuals to meet their basic requirements for rest and leisure, also known as discretionary time, owing to an excess of paid work and unpaid care and domestic work. This understanding draws on the work of Vickery (1977), as cited in: United Nations, World Survey on the Role of Women in Development 2019: Why Addressing Women’s Income and Time Poverty Matters for Sustainable Development (New York, United Nations, 2020), ST/ESA/371, available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/06/world-survey-on-the-role-of-women-in-development-2019 (accessed 10 April 2025).

20United Nations, World survey on the role of women in development (n 18).

21The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women states that a purely formal legal or programmatic approach is insufficient to guarantee women identical treatment to men. Biological, social and culturally constructed differences must be taken into account, and non-identical treatment may be required to overcome the underrepresentation of women and to ensure the redistribution of resources and power. An enabling environment is essential to achieve equality of results and to transform systems grounded in historically determined male paradigms of power and life patterns. From: Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General Recommendation No. 25 on Article 4, Paragraph 1, of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, on Temporary Special Measures (2004), paras. 8–10, available at: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/recommendations/General%20recommendation%2025%20(English).pdf (accessed 11 July 2025).

22Ana Belen Sobrino Gonzalez, CEDAW: Why Care about Equality? Exploring the Principle of Equality and Non-Discrimination in the Context of Women’s Unpaid Care and Domestic Work in Development Discourse and Practice (Oslo, University of Oslo, 2016), available at: https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/51389/HUMR5200_thesis_uio_Candidate_8021.pdf (accessed 1 April 2025).

23Priscilla Claeys and Joanna Bourke Martignoni, Women are peasants too: Gender equality and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (n 7).

24Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 34, CEDAW/C/GC/34 (n 3).

25Ibid.

26UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, A/68/293 (n 23).

27Ibid.

28Ibid.

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 34, CEDAW/C/GC/34 (n 3).

29International Labour Organization, Rural Women at Work: Bridging the Gaps (Geneva: ILO, 6 March 2018), available at: https://www.ilo.org/publications/rural-women-work-bridging-gaps (accessed 10 April 2025).

30UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, A/68/293 (n 23).

31Ibid.

32UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, A/68/293 (n 23) ; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 34, CEDAW/C/GC/34 (n 3).

33UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, A/68/293 (n 23).

34Ibid, para. 55.

35UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, A/68/293 (n 23); Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 34, CEDAW/C/GC/34 (n 3).

36Stephen Devereux and Rachel Sabates-Wheeler, Transformative social protection, IDS Working Paper No. 232 (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2004), as cited in Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Empowering rural women through social protection, Rural Transformations – Technical Papers Series No. 2 (Rome: FAO, 2015), p. 5.

37UN WomenWatch, Rural women – overview: Social protection, available at: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/ruralwomen/overview-social-protection.html (accessed 10 April 2025).

38UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, A/68/293 (n 23).

39 United Nations, Transforming Care Systems in the Context of the Sustainable Development Goals and Our Common Agenda, UN System Policy Paper (New York, 2024), p. 29, available at: https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/FINAL_UN%20System%20Care%20Policy%20Paper_24June2024.pdf (accessed 1 June 2025).

40While policy discourse typically addresses care work in its entirety, this document focuses specifically on unpaid care work. Care work includes both paid and unpaid activities that “encompass direct care for people (physical, emotional, psychological and developmental) as well as indirect care (e.g. household tasks, including collecting water and firewood, travelling and transporting), taking place within and outside the home.” Definition adapted from: United Nations, Transforming Care Systems, p. 6.

41United Nations, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, A/CONF.177/20 (1995), adopted by General Assembly resolution 50/142, available at: https://archive.unescwa.org/sites/www.unescwa.org/files/u1281/bdpfa_e.pdf (accessed 11 June 2025).

42International Labour Organization, Resolution concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilization, ICLS/19/2013/R.1 (adopted 11 October 2013), available at: https://www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-databases/standards-and-guidelines/resolutions-adopted-by-international-conferences-of-labour-statisticians/WCMS_230304/lang–en/index.htm (accessed 11 June 2025).

43 United Nations, Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, Sustainable Development Goals, available at: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal5#targets_and_indicators (accessed 11 June 2025).

44United Nations Economic and Social Council, Promoting Care and Support Systems for Social Development, resolution E/RES/2024/4 (2024), available at: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4054737?v=pdf (accessed 16 July 2025).

45Laura Addati, Umberto Cattaneo, Valeria Esquivel and Isabel Valarino, Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work (n 11).

46Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 34, CEDAW/C/GC/34 (n 3).

47United Nations Human Rights Council, The Centrality of Care and Support from a Human Rights Perspective, Resolution A/HRC/RES/54/6 (11 October 2023), available at: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/RES/54/6 (accessed 16 July 2025).

48Intersectionality is a concept and theoretical framework that facilitates recognition of the complex ways in which social identities overlap and, in negative scenarios, can create compounding experiences of discrimination and concurrent forms of oppression. United Nations Network on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Guidance Note on Intersectionality, Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (Geneva: ILO, 2023), available at: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/minorities/30th-anniversary/2022-09-22/GuidanceNoteonIntersectionality.pdf (accessed 16 July 2025).

49United Nations Human Rights Council, Human Rights Dimension of Care and Support: Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, A/HRC/58/43 (30 January 2025), available at: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/58/43 (accessed 16 July 2025).

50UN Women, Intersectionality resource guide and toolkit (New York: UN Women, 2021), available at: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/Intersectionality-resource-guide-and-toolkit-en.pdf (accessed 16 July 2025).

51Allison J. Petrozziello, “Intersectionality as method for human rights research,” Journal of Human Rights 24, no. 2 (2025): 182-198, https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2025.2477493 (accessed 16 July 2025).

52Meghan Campbell, “The distance between us: Sexual and reproductive health rights of rural women and girls,” in Shreya Atreya and Peter Dunne (eds), Intersectionality and human rights law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2020), pp. 112-130, available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3587464 (accessed 16 July 2025).

53 Amanda Lyons, “Rurality as an intersecting axis of inequality in the work of the UN treaty bodies,” Washington and Lee Law Review 79 (2022): 1125-1148, available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol79/iss3/8 (accessed 16 July 2025).

54Meghan Campbell, The distance between us (n 53).

55Amanda Lyons, Rurality as an intersecting axis of inequality (n 54); Meghan Campbell, The distance between us (n 53).

56Ibid.

57Meghan Campbell, The distance between us (n 53).

58Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 34, CEDAW/C/GC/34 (n 3).

59Lisa R. Pruitt, “Deconstructing CEDAW’s Article 14: Naming and explaining rural difference,” William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law 17 (2011), available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1770054;  Amanda Lyons, Rurality as an intersecting axis of inequality  (n 54).

60Ibid (n 60).

61Amanda Lyons, Rurality as an intersecting axis of inequality (n 54).

62Ibid.

63Lisa R. Pruitt, Deconstructing CEDAW’s Article 14 (n 60).

64Ibid.

65Hilary Charlesworth, “What are ‘Women’s International Human Rights’?” in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, p. 58 (1994), as cited in Lisa R. Pruitt, Deconstructing CEDAW’s Article 14 (n 60), p. 347.

66Sarah Redshaw, Cate Thomas, Nathan Kerrigan, Branka Krivokapic-Skoko, and Susan Flynn, “Rurality and intersectionality: a literature review,” Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal 44, no. 9 (2025): 208-226, available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2024-0482 (accessed 16 July 2025).

67Laura Addati, Umberto Cattaneo, Valeria Esquivel, and Isabel Valarino, Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work (n 11).

68 Francesca Bastagli, Jessica Hagen-Zanker, Luke Harman, Valentina Barca, Georgina Sturge, and Tanja Schmidt, with Luca Pellerano, Cash transfers: What does the evidence say? A rigorous review of programme impact and of the role of design and implementation features (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2016), available at: https://odi.org/en/publications/cash-transfers-what-does-the-evidence-say-a-rigorous-review-of-programme-impact-and-of-the-role-of-design-and-implementation-features (accessed 16 July 2025).

69Francesca Bastagli, Jessica Hagen-Zanker, Luke Harman, Valentina Barca, Georgina Sturge, and Tanja Schmidt, Cash transfers: What does the evidence say? (n 69); United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), The effect of cash-based interventions on gender outcomes in development and humanitarian settings (New York: UN Women, 2019), available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/12/effect-of-cash-based-interventions (accessed 16 July 2025).

70 United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), Innovative Solutions to Recognize, Reduce and Redistribute the Unpaid Care Work of Rural Women in Senegal (2023), available at: https://africa.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2023/06/innovative-solutions-to-recognize-reduce-and-redistribute-the-unpaid-care-work-of-rural-women-in-senegal (accessed 16 July 2025)

La entrada Rural Women and Unpaid Care Work: Gaps and Opportunities within International Law se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

A milestone victory for Kenyan peasants!

In November, a milestone judicial victory for peasants took place in Kenya. As Karine Peschard explains in her article, the UNDROP provided an important legal leverage in a historic decision taken by the High Court of Kenya in favour of peasants’ right to save, use, share, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds. Three years after a group of Kenyan peasants filed the case, the High Court ruled Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act unconstitutional, as the law not only criminalises the sale of uncertified seeds, but also curtails peasants’ control over harvests produced from protected varieties. Given its substantive legal and political outcome, this judgment “is a game changer for millions of Kenyan peasants and sets a powerful precedent for peasants’ rights and the right to seeds globally.”

In a powerful statement praising the Kenyan ruling, the experts of the United Nations Working Group on UNDROP highlighted that “this decision is a significant affirmation that the human rights of peasants and the imperatives of food security and biodiversity must prevail over overly restrictive intellectual property regimes.”

The European Union stands in favour of corporations monopolising seeds patents

In Europe, the European Coordination of La Via Campesina (ECVC) has recently denounced a harmful provisional agreement on GMO-NGT (Genetically Modified Organisms-New Genomic Techniques) made by the President of the European Council alongside negotiators from the EU Parliament and Commission. The agreement, which still needs approval by EU parliamentarians and member states, would deregulate most new GMO crops, treating them as if they were conventional plants, while removing traceability, labelling, and detection requirements.

The relevance of an international legally binding instrument for regulating transnational corporations and protecting rural women’s right to seeds

On the occasion of the 11th session of negotiations for a UN legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations, held at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in October 2025, Defending Peasants Rights interviewed a delegation from the Southern African movement Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA). They highlighted the impacts directly suffered by rural women and their communities from the activities of transnational corporations operating in their territories and countries. From seed monopoly to environmental pollution and human rights violations, transnational corporations have operated with impunity across Zambia, South Africa and Swaziland.

In this regard, also read the press release published by the United Nations Working Group on UNDROP in support of the binding treaty process.

The 7th Anniversary of UNDROP

The hard-fought UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) celebrates its 7th anniversary this month. Adopted on 17 December 2018, this declaration is a landmark victory for diverse grassroots rural movements that strongly advocated for an instrument capable of defining, protecting and advancing the rights of rural peoples worldwide. As a key legal and political instrument for the much-needed systemic transformation of global food systems, UNDROP provides leading international guidance for rural laws, policies and programmes that protect the rights of those who feed us, safeguard the environment, and advance food sovereignty.

The UN Working Group on UNDROP recently issued a statement commemorating the 7th anniversary of UNDROP, underscoring its central relevance in addressing the cross-sectoral and structural issues confronting rural peoples in today’s neoliberal and capitalist world. Check it out here!

Send us your proposals for publications and future collaborations

Defending Peasants’ Rights wishes you a prosperous 2026 in advancing rural peoples’ rights!

La entrada Newsletter n°9 | Seed Sovereignty: Advancements and Setbacks in the Right to Seeds se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

1: What is the Rural Women’s Assembly and what are your key areas of work?

The Rural Women Assembly is a network of movements of peasants, fisher folks, farm workers, migrant and landless women, all living and working in the rural areas in the Southern Africa region. We are in 11 countries, with a membership of close to 200,000 members. So it’s a very unique movement of rural women in the region.

Essentially, the Rural Women Assembly builds the voice of rural women and builds agency in relation to questions of access to land and water; the right to food; the right to seeds; and of course, we deal with patriarchal issues that affect women particularly in rural areas. Also central to our work is the issue of climate justice, which has a substantial impact on the region, largely due to the many cyclones that strike it repeatedly, as well as other climate-related crises.

Furthermore, we deal with cases of gender-based violence. In this regard, we develop study cycles in different countries, which are spaces that allow us to discuss on issues related to violence against women.

We are also the guardians of our seeds, because we believe that seeds are our lives, our heritage, our identity, which we don’t want to lose. We have a situation where the transnational corporations, the seed companies, want us to do away with our seeds, which we have inherited for generations and generations – and we’re resisting against that.

2: Why are you here in Geneva this week? What are your expectations?

We are here in Geneva for the 11th session of negotiation on a legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations (TNCs). We are here because our communities are experiencing violence from transnational corporations every day. The people in the communities are being grabbed off their land, where we do farming as women. We also have issues of climate crisis, as already said. These companies should pay for the pollution, the damages and the losses that we’re experiencing each and every year. It’s drought, it’s floods… So that is why we are here, so that we can contribute to the elaboration of a binding treaty to hold these companies accountable. Our goal is for the treaty to be out so that we are able to prevent these catastrophes.

We are here to have our voices heard, because when we’re in our countries we can issue statements, but they don’t reach the United Nations. So we are here in multiple movements and communities, and a collective voice from different countries can carry weight.

We are here as part of the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity – a powerful coalition of social movements, progressive organisations and communities affected by transnational corporations – to raise the issues of the rural women in the Global South. Being here is critical for us and it’s part of our advocacy strategy as Rural Women’s Assembly. We want to invest and participate in different platforms to advocate locally, nationally, and internationally, and use these global policy-making spaces or even UN instruments to really amplify our voice.

3: How does the struggle for a strong binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations relate to the protection and implementation of peasants’ rights as outlined in the UNDROP declaration?

There is a strong connection. I was very pleased to hear about the inclusion, in Article 15.7 of the draft text of the binding treaty, of a provision on the rights of peasants and rural peoples, which received strong support from almost all countries, particularly from Colombia and Palestine. It speaks to the UNDROP that the rights of the peasants are included in this treaty. This instrument will help us to push forward the agenda of ours, which is pushing for the implementation of UNDROP in our countries. Whilst our countries, for example, South Africa, signed the declaration in 2018, we still don’t have a policy that implements UNDROP. Having this binding treaty in place will strengthen our advocacy and work back home to ensure that we hold our governments to account to implement both instruments. So, these two legal frameworks are going to be key vehicles for us to utilize in our advocacy strategies.

It is necessary to note that the violations committed by transnational corporations directly affect the very rights granted to us by UNDROP. In particular, the right to seeds, the right to land, and the right to water. Once this treaty is adopted, we will have a binding instrument to which we can refer in order to defend ourselves.

4: How do TNCs activities impact your communities?

Firstly, TNCs want to take away our seeds and impose their own industrial seeds.. These enterprises pollute our water, causing a lot of diseases. The pollution affects not only people, but also animals and crops. As a result, we suffer from illnesses we don’t even recognise – sometimes even our own countries tell us they don’t know how to treat them. These are the impacts we are facing as a result of what TNCs are doing in our communities.

Seed sovereignty is no longer a right. Seeds have been commodified by transnational corporations. They have become a source of capital accumulation at the detriment of the rural poor. Our governments ignore that our seeds are resistant when it comes to the effects of climate change. Our seeds can be planted several times. When you buy hybrid seeds, they only last for a year. If you try to plant those seeds afterwards, they won’t germinate. Our seeds, on the other hand, are resistant – we can plant them for many years. Hence, we have food security at home and in the community. Our seeds are perfect. They are not harmful. They have healing properties and a lot of nutrients. You can cook the food coming from them in different ways. Sometimes they say there’s hunger in Zambia. It’s because they are following the corporate world’s thinking. If we could think like the rural women are thinking, there would be a lot of food in Zambia. There shouldn’t be even hunger in there. So, this treaty will also help us protect our seeds and our lives.

Hybrid seeds are expensive compared to our own kept seeds because they require fertilizers and chemicals. If you plant hybrids without any fertilizer, you get nothing. So, we are also trying to promote our own indigenous seeds, despite the threats we face from our governments. With the support of our governments, TNCs steal our seeds, make them hybrid, and make us pay the price for them. We have the right to say no to what they want to offer us.

Furthermore, they’re polluting the environment and they’re telling us we shouldn’t cut our trees so that the trees can clean up the carbon. They are interested in developing the carbon credit markets. They come into our areas, they grab big portions of land. They say, we shouldn’t even go and pick the mushrooms in there; we shouldn’t go pick the caterpillars in there. They put guards, so that we can’t go get the firewood. So, we have our own land, but we don’t have control of our own land. It’s very intimidating. They sell carbon with a lot of money, but we don’t get to get anything from there.

They grab land also because they want to do their mining, meanwhile we are displaced from a land where we’ve lived for so many years. They even damage the graves that are on the land. That is very de-humansing. There’s a lot of impunity in what they’re doing.

These TNCs have destroyed our land with pollution. You have a field that you cannot use for the next 10 years because it has been damaged with unknown toxic minerals that have passed through the area. In the Zambian Copperbelt province, which is near where we stay, TNCs polluted the Kafue River, which runs across the whole country. We can’t access the water in three quarters of the land through which the Kafue River passes. We can’t eat any fish from there.

In South Africa, fisher folks have taken up our government – particularly our Department of Mineral Resource and Energy – for blasting on the oceans, for working and collaborating with the Shell company, which was looking for oil in the ocean in the eastern part of South Africa. We have a similar case in terms of Titanium that has been going on for a long time also in the eastern part of South Africa, in Mbizana, where the communities are standing up and saying, ‘we have the right to say no’.The principle of free, prior and informed consent of the concerned communities should be respected. This has been a long process of litigation and these transnational corporations must be held accountable. They need to pay. We need reparations. Through the process of resisting, lives were lost, defenders have been killed and many are being threatened as we speak.

5: How have you been mobilising the UNDROP declaration in Southern Africa in favour of rural women’s rights?

Firstly, we made sure that our members understand what this declaration stands for and therefore what are the rights that are contained in it. We went through a strong move of capacitating, educating and building awareness amongst our members on their rights and how to engage to defend them. It is a declaration adopted by the United Nations that every country must implement, so it was critical for us to make sure our communities understood their rights. Each country has an advocacy strategy, they amplify the UNDROP in their communities. We have a booklet which is featured on our website, and we carry it everywhere. In every opportunity we have in engaging the duty bearers or government officials, we use this as a tool to engage and empower communities.

For example, in South Africa, we have been running a campaign called “One Woman, One Hectare of Land”, to provide more land for women. We combine that campaign with the UNDROP, especially the right to land, the right to food sovereignty, the right to use our seeds.

As rural women across different countries, we hold food and seed festivals every year. We do that to identify what seeds were lost, what we still have, how we can make better use of each seed. We now want to make seed banks and demo fields where we can be planting these seeds, so that we can multiply them. We also develop seed sharing initiatives. We work to increase our seed stocks so that, as we resist transnational corporations, we also show the strength of what we have.

In Swaziland, for instance, we are engaging government officials in the implementation of UNDROP. We have engaged with several ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture, but concrete results are yet to come as they have not yet prioritised the issue. We also started with translating the UNDROP to the local languages so that it is accessible to our people, to the women.

6: What is your message for Southern African states regarding their engagement in the Binding Treaty process?

What is critical in this podium is to hear the voices of the Global South, especially our African governments. We want them to stop corporate impunity. The should take action for our people, for our communities, for the poor, for our nations. In South Africa, for example, we have a great human rights constitution. South Africa has signed declarations, and has been historically committed to the UNDROP. Therefore, we demand that our voices are heard and that these instruments are implemented.

We wish more African countries were actively engaging in this Binding Treaty negotiation process. The governments should step in, find markets for our indigenous foods and promote them, and help the peasants. If we don’t have maize, there’s sorghum, there’s different types of beans, there’s cassava. We can make a meal from that. So they should put the lives of their people first rather than protecting these so-called investors that are coming into our countries just to plunder. They extract the minerals, take them away, and when they return, we are forced to buy our own resources back at a very high price.

If corporations are coming as investors in our countries, let them build schools, roads, hospitals. The government should stand up and fight for us. Stop looking at the profits, and look at the lives of our people!

La entrada Corporate impunity and seed sovereignty: Interview with the Rural Womens’ Assembly (RWA) se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

On November 27, 2025, the High Court of Kenya in Machakos delivered a much-awaited decision in a constitutional challenge to the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act mounted by smallholder farmers. The Court decided in favour of the petitioners on all counts, striking down various sections of the Act and Regulations.

As reported earlier on Defending Peasants’ Rights, the constitutional challenge to the Seeds and Plant VarietiesAct was filed in 2022 by a group of peasants of Seeds Savers Network against the government agency responsible for implementing the Act.

Revised in 2012, Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act is a draconian law that prohibits peasants from saving, sharing, exchanging and selling seeds under penalty of criminal sanctions. In her decision, the judge declared that various provisions of the Act were contrary to the Constitution of Kenya, the FAO Plant Treaty and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). The judge ruled that the Constitution had to be read along with Article 9 of the Plant Treaty and article 19 of UNDROP, and that Kenya was bound by its obligations under international law in general and international human rights in particular.

More specifically, the judge struck down the section of the Act that gives inspectors who reasonably believe that a breach has been committed the power to seize and dispose of seeds. The judge ruled that this violates a peasant’s right to the privacy of their person, home and property, as enshrined in the Constitution. The Judge also noted that failure to define “reasonable belief” and to provide for an independent oversight mechanism could lead to arbitrariness and abuse.

Importantly, the judge declared that several provisions of the Act are unconstitutional because they infringe on peasants’ right to save, use, share, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds. These provisions criminalize the sale of seeds unless they are certified seeds sold by registered merchants, and limit peasants’ rights over their harvest grown from protected varieties.

The judge ruled that by restricting the right to save, share and exchange seeds, these provisions are contrary to the Constitution, which affirms that the State must recognize the role of science and Indigenous technologies, and recognize and protect the ownership of indigenous seeds and plant varieties, their diverse characteristics and their use by the communities of Kenya. Given the important contribution of smallholder farmers to food production, the Judge determined that these provisions also violate the right to food guaranteed by the Constitution, and Kenya’s obligation to take legislative, policy and other measures to achieve its progressive realization. Finally, the Judge also ruled that exorbitant registration fees, coupled with strict registration requirements, amount to indirect discrimination against smallholder farmers and peasants.

Regarding the right to participation, the Judge observed that many of the issues raised in the petition could have been avoided had the government ensured the right to adequate and meaningful participation by peasants, interested parties and the public in the process of developing the legislation. The Judge directed the government to ensure the right to participation in the process of amending the law to comply with the judgment.

It is not yet known if the Kenyan government will appeal the decision. In any case, this judgment is a game changer for millions of Kenyan peasants and sets a powerful precedent for peasants’ rights and the right to seeds globally.

***

Judgment of the High Court of Kenya, available here:
https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/kehc/2025/18166/eng@2025-11-27

Constitution of Kenya (in particular, arts. 11, 21(2) and 43(1):
https://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/TheConstitutionOfKenya.pdf

Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act:
https://upovlex.upov.int/en/legislation/text/506145

La entrada Landmark victory for Kenyan peasants and seed sovereignty se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

GENEVA – October 15, 2025 – On the International Day of Rural Women, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas issued an urgent call to action, demanding States and corporations end the systemic discrimination, violence, and economic exclusion faced by rural women worldwide. Despite producing over 70 percent of the developing world’s food supply and leading climate adaptation efforts, peasant women and other women working in rural areas (rural women) remain among the most marginalized groups, facing profound violations of their fundamental human rights.

The urgent call to action highlights a series of intersecting rights violations that shape the stark realities faced by rural women worldwide. The Working Group thereby urges states, multilateral institutions, the private sector, and civil society to uphold the rights of rural women as enshrined in the UNDROP, through concrete actions within their respective domains.

See full call to action below:

La entrada UN Working Group on UNDROP Demands Urgent Action to Uphold Rights of Rural Women se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.