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While women farmers produce between 60  and 80 percent of all food in developing countries, legal and customary laws and practices have historically limited their ability to fully access and control the land and natural resources they rely upon to do so (FAO.2020).

As in other parts of the globe, rural women in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer double discrimination: as women and because they inhabit rural areas.

The full recognition of women’s human rights is a pillar of the Inter-American systems for protecting human rights. In fact, the legal framework for guaranteeing the rights of rural women has advanced steadily in the region – along with progress on general guarantees for women’s rights, gender equality and the right to development – and continues to be developed and strengthened.

 The Legal Brief “Legislating to Guarantee the Rights of Rural Women in Latin America and the Caribbean” addresses the international and regional regulatory frameworks that together provide the basis for establishing the rights of rural women. The Brief also looks at the constitutional and legislative advances in the matter that have been achieved in some of the countries in the region. The specific laws that have been approved are presented, as well as examples of laws that protect the right to productive resources and services and the right to participation of rural women, as adopted in various countries of the region.

The Brief also highlights the efforts of the Parliamentary Front against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean – a network of more than 400 legislators supported by FAO, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Mexican Agency for Cooperation International for Development – as well as the role of national parliaments to advance the protection rural women’s rights. It concludes with some recommendations addressed to parliamentarians that can contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 5.

Download the Legal Brief here.