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HungerFree
Women newsletter
Action
Aid International
October
01 , 2008
In
the coming weeks and months we will see ground breaking activities
taking place in over 15 countries as part of HungerFree Women. Women
in each of these countries are coming together at local, district,
regional and national level to discuss, strategize, mobilize, and
demand their rights and needs as women farmers in the face of the
food crisis, and in the face of discrimination against them in terms
of accessing land, natural resources, and ways of earning a living.
This campaign push will be brought together internationally through
a media push around World Food Day and through the new revamped
www.actionaid.org/hungerfree website which will go live on 15th
October. Watch that space for stories, photos, video and news of
what is happening on the ground.
Here is a snapshot
of what will be happening across the world:
Zimbabwe
Rural meetings
in 11 districts are using PVA tools to better understand what is
needed to secure the rights and bolster the food production of women
farmers. These are then being followed by rural hearings where women
are meeting with local leaders and raising their issues directly
to the authorities. In some cases responses have been instant -i.e.
a local councilor in one area straight away ordered 17 farms to
be allocated to women.
There will be
a national Women and Land conference between 22nd and 24th November.
Mozambique
A Rural Women's
Forum has taken place with powerful leaders such as Graca Machel
and government ministers taking part. Country-wide in-depth consultations
with women farmers over the past few months have generated the following
charter demands:
- Access to
written Rights to Land for a woman within 45 days of applying
- Access to
credit & financing
- Access to
information and training on land laws
- Implementation
of a monitoring mechanism to analyse the progress made with land
laws.
Women from AA
DAs will take part in an event and march in Maputo organized by
wider social movements to mark Rural Women's Day from 15-17th
October. Graca Machel will be coming for the march and the President
of Mozambique will receive the charter himself from the women at
the end of the march.
Vietnam
Charter meetings
have taken place in 7 DAs, where women have had discussions around
their entitlement to land, and signed charter messages on rice bowls.
The key rallying
slogans for AAV's HungerFREE Women activities are:
- Women have
the legal rights to access land
- Land entitlement
ensures sustainable livelihoods for women
- The law provides
for land use certificate bearing both husband's and wife's
names
Preparations
are now gearing up for a national event on the 12th. Two reports
- women's entitlement to land, and the impact of the
food crisis on the poor - which are both based on recent surveys
conducted by AAV, will be launched at the event. A concert with
popular artists will also take place at the university, with a special
performance of the KaKaKonKele song in Vietnamese.
The
Gambia
Under the local
HungerFREE brand, "Keno dii Musolu-la ka konko Bai"
(give space to women to eradicate hunger), AA The Gambia is this
year building even further on its work to build a strong women's
movement calling for women's right to land and productive
resources for agriculture and enterprise development.
The HungerFREE
Women specific aims are to get the government to review the obsolete
customary law (the Provincial Lands Act, 1955) in favour of women
farmers and to increase budget allocations to the agriculture sector
with a special budget target to support specific women's activities.
Starting on15th
October a 5 day cross-country caravan (long bus) supported by media
events, local musicians and artists will visit all regions, and
will be accompanied by radio and TV channels. The caravan will culminate
at the FAO World Food Day candlelit vigil on 21st October, where
women farmers will hand over their demands to the Speaker of the
National Assembly
Pakistan
Having already
done country-wide consultations with women AAP is now building up
to nearly 6 weeks of mobilisation. A launch event on 15th -
16th October on the theme food security and women's right
to land, will see women farmers from across the country sharing
their experiences on the food crisis and women's right to
land.
A journey starting
in Sindh province on 17th October will then travel through all other
provinces in Pakistan and culminate in Islamabad. Along the way
there will be press conferences, a long march (1st - 11th November),
demonstrations, rallies, conferences, dialogues, seminars, consultations,
and presentations of charters to provincial government. The journey
will culminate on 27th Nov with a joint national convention on food
crisis and women's right to land.
HungerFREE Women
in Pakistan is calling for an end to the food crisis, equitable
and just distribution of land among landless peasants particularly
women through Agrarian Reforms, a revision of the agriculture policy,
and for women farm workers' rights and protection.
Senegal
Following on
from the Paris-Dakar events earlier this year where women's
right to land was one of the key messages, AAS is now launching
HungerFREE Women with the Music 4 Justice CD in a concert that will
take place on 17th October. Organised in partnership with GCAP,
the overarching message is for the government to respect their MDG1
commitment to halve hunger by 2015. Ending the food crisis and women's
right to land are the specific messages that will be promoted. Two
partners will give testimonies with Didier Awade on stage during
the concert, with killer facts displayed on big screens, and women
artists will speak out against women discrimination towards land.
Americas
The Americas
region has partnered up with VIA Campesina women, the Guatemala
HungerFREE campaign, IFSN networks, and other national women's
groups under the Muheres Sin Hambre (Women without hunger/ Women
for a HungerFREE world) banner.
Across 6 countries
women are making a variety of demands on access to land, women's
full ctizeinship and identity cards, food sovereignty, water, urban
agriculture.
There are plans
for mobilizations in Honduras and:
Peru -
a march of over 100 women in Lima along with a seed and food fair
and public forum;
Chile -
mobilizations across the country, a seminar on food security and
a big march on water on 15th
Nicaragua -
a parade and the delivery of the manifesto to the national assembly
Paraguay -
a traditional food fair, campaign activities and press conference
Guatemala -
a big presence at the Americas Social Forum (7th - 12th October)
with a cooking fair, plates signature collection, petition photos,
an event on women and land and participation in the social forum
march.
Also happening:
- AA DRC, having
just set up a national coalition on women and land, will celebrate
Rural Women's Day on 15th October. They are calling for
the harmonisation of laws around women's right to land,
and for peace and for an end to the sexual violence that means
women fear going to work on their land.
- AASA is working
with DA partner, Masifunde, in the Eastern Cape to develop campaigning
work on women's right to land. There will be a mobilisation
and charter presentation on 15th October.
- AA Kenya
is launching report on women's rights to land
- AA Nigeria
is holding a big music for justice concert around world food day
- AA Ghana
will be mobilising against biofuels in the regional capital
It doesn't
stop there - Keeping up the momentum:
Keeping up the
momentum of this campaign push, AA Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Nepal,
Zimbabwe, Malawi, India, Haiti and Brazil will be mobilising with
women in November and December.
The HungerFREE
food crisis campaign push for the coming months will be focused
on investing in women farmers, and small holder farmers more generally.
Through our e-action on the revamped websitction oneg in November
adn desh, ork on their land. l celebrate Rural Women't their MDG1
commitment to halve hunge, and through other promotions, other people
including our supporters can take action alongside the women farmers'
actions and we can start to build a global movement for agricultural
change through this campaign push. This advocacy work will be supported
and coordinated by the AA Food Crisis Task Force, which will provide
more guidance to national campaign teams.
Visit the Action
Aid fact
sheet
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