Niger : agricultural trade liberalization and women’s rights

Niger is experiencing the residual effects of 2005’s food emergency, which are expected to persist for a number of years regardless of a return to normal harvests. Underlying and exacerbating the recent crisis is Niger’s structural food insecurity, which perennially leaves 32 percent of the population undernourished and 40 percent of children under five chronically malnourished. Social and cultural patterns of conduct contribute to women’s overrepresentation among the poorest and most vulnerable groups in Niger. Women face a perpetual crisis of access not only to food, but also to income with which to buy food and essential services for themselves and their children. Trade rules currently under negotiation could further exacerbate the discrimination experienced by Nigerian women, particularly rural women.

Niger, as a State party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), has an obligation to take measures to respect, protect, and fulfil women’s equal rights to work and to health. These rights and obligations must be understood both in the context of the particular problems faced by rural women. In Niger’s agriculture-based economy, the right to work implies an obligation to ensure that farm work in particular is remunerative, on a basis of equality of men and women. The Committee has additionally specified that the right to health includes women’s fundamental human right to nutritional well-being throughout their lives by means of secure food supply. Read more