Pakistan has the fifth highest number of hungry people in the world, of which 70 percent are women and a quarter of its population cannot afford two-time meal, whereas 85 percent earn below two dollars a day. This was stated by Manager, Women Rights, ActionAid, Aqsa Khan, while addressing a press conference on "Women rights to land and hunger-free women campaign" held here on Friday.
She said that according to figures, 950 million people are hungry in the world and 1.7 billion people (25 percent) of the world's population lack basic food security. Aqsa Khan said that over 3,000 women farmers had been mobilised in Sindh and Balochistan alone, stressing upon the government to recognise them as farmers and make legislation to secure women's right to land.
"They are travelling from village to village generating public support and engaging with the policy-makers to press for pro-women agrarian reforms", she added. Launched at the international rural women day, Hunger-Free Women campaign is gaining momentum as in a momentous mobilisation of women at the grassroots level, poor women farmers, home-based women workers and fisher folk women are demanding equal share in land and property as a long-term solution to end the food crisis.
These women are endorsing their collective charter of demands and engaging with the political leaders at the provincial level as they look ahead towards national level culmination of the historic journey. After completing the journeys in Sindh and Balochistan, the women caravan is mobilising women in Punjab and now moving towards NWFP and Azad Kashmir.
"This will be an awakening for our rural women, an awareness for them about their right to economic and social empowerment", said Aqsa Khan. Mirzadi and other community women, who participated in Charter Journeys in Sindh, said women cultivated the land and grew crops, but they got no share in the income.
"We go to bed hungry. We cannot afford to buy food for our children due to high prices. We are pulling our children out of schools because if we continue to pay for their studies, we will be left with any no money to buy food.
We community women work in the fields, make ropes and do embroidery work to add our family income but we don't get fair price for our products and the raw material is getting costly everyday. We cannot even buy medicines when we fall sick", shared the women came from various parts of the rural areas of the country.
Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, MPA Humera Alvani and other government representatives and parliamentarians joined the protest rallies and demonstrations held in different parts of the country, and assured the poor women farmers of their support.