In news–International Day for Rural Women is celebrated on October 15.
About International Day for Rural Women
- The day focuses on gender equality and empowering women in rural areas.
- This year the theme is “Rural women cultivating good food for all”.
- The theme aims to eradicate discrimination faced by women in rural areas.
- The purpose of this day is to recognise the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.
- The United Nations General Assembly had established this day on December 18, 2007, in its resolution 62/136.
Key statistics
- According to a report by the United Nations, 40% of the total agricultural labour force in developing countries comprises women.
- Less than 20% of landholders worldwide are women.
- In South American countries, the figure is around 20% whereas, in Asia and Africa, more than 50% of the agricultural labour force is women.
- Providing these women with equal opportunities can increase agricultural production by 2.5 to 4 percent.
- It can also reduce the number of people with malnourishment from 12 to 17 percent.
- The recent report by UN Women states that in 2020, 23.7 billion people could not have access to adequate food.
- This means that around 20% or 3.2 billion people more were pushed towards hunger. Among these people, the group which faced most of the brunt were rural women and children.
- UN Women’s latest report, Beyond COVID-19: A feminist plan for sustainability and social justice, calls for rebuilding the broken global food system from the bottom-up by supporting rural women’s livelihoods to produce and distribute diverse and healthy food crops.
Source: India Today
