Our Children and The Basic Right to Not be Hungry (Bloggers Unite)

“Across the world, 840 million people are chronically malnourished. Nearly 11 million children die before the age of five each year. . . This is not just an unfortunate reality of life. It is a human rights scandal of shocking proportions….” -Amnesty International

The right to adequate food
There is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone, and yet hundreds of millions are chronically malnourished. To comply with obligations related to the right to adequate food, states must immediately tackle hunger and progressively ensure that “every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”.

Availability: possibilities either for feeding oneself directly from productive land or other natural resources, or from well-functioning distribution, processing and market systems. This includes obligations of the state when acting internationally to ensure respect for the right to food in other countries, to protect that right, to facilitate access to food, and to provide the necessary aid when required.

Accessibility: both economic accessibility (through economic activity, appropriate subsidies or aid) and physical accessibility (in particular for vulnerable groups). The socially vulnerable or otherwise disadvantaged may need attention through special programmes. They include victims of natural disasters and people living in disaster-prone areas!

Acceptability: “The availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances, and acceptable within a given culture.”

One of the most basic obligations under the right to food is the duty on states not to starve those within their control, such as prisoners. As the UN Human Rights Committee has established, when the state arrests and detains individuals, it takes on direct responsibility to care for their lives, for example to provide adequate medical treatment, living conditions and food. Human rights standards also speak to gender-specific aspects of the right to food, requiring states to meet the needs of women during pregnancy, confinement and after giving birth.