FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean

Gender Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean face a context of economic slowdown, with an increase in food insecurity, malnutrition and the risks associated with climate change. This situation strongly affects rural women and constitutes a significant obstacle to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.

That is why FAO is committed to promoting gender equality and protecting women's rights as fundamental human rights.

Consequently, FAO Policy on Gender Equality 2020-2030 mandates the Organization to focus its work on achieving equality between women and men in sustainable agriculture and rural development with a view to eliminating hunger and poverty.

This site reports on the work in favour of gender equality carried out by FAO in cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean States, providing information on initiatives, good practices, methodologies and tools that contribute to the achievement of gender equality.

Stories
Rural women in Haiti invest in themselves

Village savings and loan associations help Haitian women build their businesses and futures

Women move mountains

Supporting inspiring mountain women as they overcome discrimination, livelihood disruptions and climate challenges to carve out new futures

Mujeres Rurales, Mujeres con Derechos [Rural Women, Women With Rights] Campaign

The campaign convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is a collaborative work initiative that joins efforts, articulates networks, disseminates knowledge and positive experiences to promote the full autonomy of women in the rural world.

Since 2016 this campaign articulates government entities, civil society organisations and United Nations agencies around regional and national advocacy actions in favour of the empowerment of rural women in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Actions
YearAction
2016Regional social media campaign
2017Regional campaign on social networks and competitions at territorial level.
2018Regional social media campaign and platform to energize sub-regional agendas.
2019Days of social media activism and national activities.
2020-2021Regional campaign on social networks and competitions at territorial level.
Featured publications
01/2023

The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems report provides the latest data, lessons learned and recommendations for policy and decision makers about gender in agrifood systems. It reviews and analyzes women’s opportunities and constraints in economic and social processes, while taking stock and assessing progress made in closing a series of gender gaps.

11/2022

In Latin America and the Caribbean, access to food and nutritional security, the poverty situation, and the capacity to respond to climate change are strongly related to gender, ethnic-racial origin, age group, and territory differences. A situation that demands observing the intertwined nature of these inequalities and proposing new ways to achieve sustainable development, leaving no one behind.

06/2021

Gender equality is essential to achieve FAO’s mandate of a world free from hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. The Organization recognizes that persisting inequalities between women and men are a major obstacle to agriculture and rural development and that eliminating these disparities is essential to building sustainable and inclusive food systems and resilient and peaceful societies.

Transformative initiatives

Mexico

Dec 19, 2023, 18:27 PM
Title : Mexico
Open on load : No
“Cerrando Brechas” [Closing the Gap] Project

Between the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Jalisco, an internal migration route is linked to the work of agricultural day labourers.

This population faces various gaps in access to social protection in the areas of employment, health and education, due to the high mobility, temporary contracts and informal employment that prevail in the sector. This situation largely limits the right to social security systems, health services and education.

There is also a significant gender gap in conditions and pay between men and women doing the same work, as well as an unequal burden of care that falls on women.

In this context, an urgent need for social programmes that specifically address the needs of women agricultural day labourers – who are now also facing the COVID-19 contingency – has been identified.

FAO, ILO and UN Women are working together on the Cerrando Brechas project to identify gaps and good practices in social protection for populations arriving in the state of Jalisco from Oaxaca.

This inter-agency initiative is promoted with the support of the Joint SDG Fund. Dialogues have been held through technical sessions with different sectors to issue recommendations in the context of COVID-19, aimed at decision-makers, employers and people accompanying the day labourer population. A document on the panorama and rights agenda of the agricultural day labourer population in the context of the pandemic was also drafted, and spaces and mechanisms for multi-sectoral articulation for decision-making were promoted.

In Mexico, only 30 percent of women have land rights, so they are more often excluded from government programmes, equipment, infrastructure, credit and training. Fundamental for agricultural support. (falta una parte de la frase?)

Also, only three out of ten women receive a wage for the work they do in the agricultural sector. However, women seasonal agricultural workers face other challenges, such as lower pay compared to men.

FAO, ILO and UN Women “Cerrando Brechas” project has identified three key actions to improve the situation of women agricultural labourers:

  1. It is necessary to ensure the availability of data disaggregated by gender, ethnicity and age, as this will enable needs to be targeted and addressed from a gender and intercultural perspective. 
  2. There is an urgent need to design and implement programmes for the social and economic inclusion of women agricultural and indigenous day labourers, linking actions with the labour agenda of the agricultural day labourer population for access to extended social protection.
  3. It is necessary to manage and provide services for access to information technologies that facilitate communication between the day labourer population, towards their places of origin and other interlocutors in the public, private and social sectors, based on a participatory and inclusive rights agenda.
Ellas Deciden [They Decide]

In Latin America, early and forced marriages and unions have not declined, at least in the last 30 years, and there is no evidence that the necessary investments have been made to reduce them.

The highest number of these marriages and unions occur in rural contexts in the region. In the case of Mexico, a higher rate of this type of unions is observed in Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas – with around 30 percent. The main causes of this type of marriages and unions are: gender-based violence, traditional norms of communities and lack of money in the households.

The 2030 Agenda has made a commitment to eradicate these harmful practices, as stated in Target 5.3 of Goal 5: eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

In this context, The Hunger Project Mexico promotes the Ellas Deciden initiative, which works for the integral leadership of all girls, adolescents, young women and women to guarantee their right to participate in local development.

This initiative is based on the belief in the transformative power of girls, adolescents, young women and empowered communities.

In this sense, Comprehensive Sexuality Education and the construction of self-sufficient communities are fundamental elements to put an end to early marriages and unions, domestic and gender-based violence, unplanned pregnancies and the feminisation of rural poverty. 

The Hunger Project Mexico carries out various actions aimed at reducing forced and early marriages and unions.

These include the Community-Led Development School, which has sought to strengthen women's leadership, raise awareness of gender equality, promote mechanisms for participation and develop local advocacy strategies. 

The initiative also promotes rural women's circles, which seek to create a space of mutual trust that allows them to share their needs as women in terms of education, health, sexual and reproductive health, housing, gender-based violence, food, and other important issues. It has also promoted a forum on early and forced marriages and unions, unpaid care work and poverty in rural contexts in Mexico and Latin America, with the aim of producing recommendations on the issue and using this document to influence the UN Women Generation Equality Forum process. 

The initiative has left three crucial lessons for further progress in eradicating harmful practices affecting rural women, youth and girls: 

  1. Gender mainstreaming is important, but it is also essential to consider intercultural and youth approaches, as this ensures a response to differentiated realities. 
  2. Work to end the harmful practices that deepen the feminisation of poverty must be done not only with women, but also with men, especially children, adolescents and young people, and with communities at large.  
  3. There is a need to move away from seeing people as beneficiaries to seeing them as indispensable "partners" in building gender-equal communities and countries. 
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Contact

Ricardo Rivera

Communicator for the Thriving and Inclusive Rural Societies Regional Initiative

FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean

Constanza Soudy

Communications Assistant for Gender and Indigenous Peoples

[email protected]