tenure must also be granted to rural women, to guarantee not only their legal protection against forced eviction and other related threats, but also to empower them to achieve equal land rights with men.52 CASE STUDY III Rural Women Access to Land and the Right to Food and Nutrition: The case of Kilusang Magbubukid of Bondoc Peninsula in Hacienda Matias at Barangay Don Juan Vercelos, San Francisco, Quezon Province In 2004, farmer-members of the Kilusang Magbubukid of Bondoc Peninsula (KMBP) who were tenants of Hacienda Matias, a 1,716-hectare coconut plantation, filed a claim over the land they have been tilling pursuant to the national agrarian reform program. In 2014, almost a decade later, the primary government agency in-charge of the CARP implementation ordered the distribution of Hacienda Matias to the petitioners. Of 253 farmer-beneficiaries who were awarded Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) covering 639 hectares whereby only 24.5% or 62 CLOA holders were women53. Over 300 farmer-beneficiaries are yet to receive their CLOAs. Women from Hacienda Matias are engaged in both productive and unpaid domestic work. While they support their husbands in the harvesting and selling of copra (dried coconut meat), which is also the main source of subsistence of Hacienda Matias farmers, they also take care of house chores and child care. To meet daily food and other basic needs, farmers have to find alternative sources of food and either plant crops or catch fish. These sources are, however, not available regularly. As the hacienda is located in a very remote area, alternative work opportunities are rather limited. More often, women are the ones who bear the burden of finding ways to feed their families, such as making charcoal that can be sold for PHP 70 to 80 (USD 1.51 to 1.73) per sack, or selling brooms made of coconut midribs for PHP 21 to 25 (USD 0.45 to 0.54) per 1.7 kg. In one day, women can earn around PHP 70 (USD 1.51) by selling these brooms. To augment family income, children help occasionally as laborers who carry bags and cargoes of boat passengers at the community port. Due to a lack of income, the families often subsist only on rice or rice congee, root crops and fish sauce.54 4. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS We kindly request the CEDAW committee to recommend to the Philippines State to adopt all necessary measures to ensure women’s equal rights with respect to access to employment and livelihood, access to health and nutrition, and access to productive resources. Toward this end, we outline our specific recommendations below: Access to Employment and Livelihood - - To effectively improve and implement the MCW, in particular Section 22 and 23 that guarantee women’s right to decent work, livelihood, credit, capital and technology. Ensure “equal remuneration for work of equal value” in order to reduce the wage gap between women and men; this will develop and implement an independent and transparent minimum-wage setting process which sets a wage basis and can be extended to certain categories of work. This process is crucial for women’s wages as they tend to be largely disadvantaged in free income distribution. For workers in the informal sector, the State must ensure that all provisions in Batas Kasambahay are followed. Monitoring and redress mechanisms must be in place and must be known to all women. Reduce women’s unpaid domestic and care work as a strategy to facilitate an equal participation of women and men in the labor market, including the development of a child care service framework policy. Set gender-equitable targets and macroeconomic responses with proper monitoring in order to expand equal and decent working opportunities for women and men. This will also require policies and legislation to improve social protection and active labor market support. ADB (2013): RETA 6143: Technical Assistance for Promoting Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, Consultant’s Report, 10, http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-document/153354/37402-012-tacr-24.pdf [Accessed: 13.05.2016]. 53 Data provided by RIGHTS Inc. Network, a local NGO that is working closely with the farmers in Hacienda Matias. 54 See Beringer, Astrud Lea; Briola, Catherine A. (2015): Hacienda Matias: Taking steps towards the right to adequate food. In: Rappler, July 24, http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/hunger/100157-hacienda-matias-right-food [Accessed: 03.06.2016]. 52 -9-