PAN Asia Pacific - PANAP

The state of rural women in Asia

Rural women are at the heart of food systems, biodiversity conservation, and community survival. Yet many remain excluded from social protection, land rights, healthcare, and decent work.

As climate disasters, economic crises, and corporate‑driven agriculture deepen inequalities, rural women continue to bear multiple burdens while receiving the least protection.

Social protection is not charity. It is a right. Rural women demand protection, dignity, and justice through rights‑based, gender‑responsive systems that recognise their contributions and address the realities they face.

📖 Learn more in our policy brief: tinyurl.com/SPPolicyBrief2026

🔜 Ahead of the High‑Level Social Protection Summit in the Philippines (July 20–21, 2026), PANAP calls for urgent action to ensure rural women’s rights are at the center of social protection systems.

🌾 Rural women feed communities, yet their work remains undervalued and unrecognised.

This International Year of Women Farmers, PANAP honours the women who produce food, preserve biodiversity, and sustain communities in Asia. But recognition alone is not enough: Rural women need social protection, land rights, decent work, and meaningful participation in decisions that shape their lives.

Read more in our policy brief: tinyurl.com/SPPolicyBrief2026

Every day, children’s lives are stolen by pesticides. UNICEF’s new report Underestimated and Overlooked reveals that, in some regions, 80–90% of children have detectable pesticides in their bodies. These exposures silently trigger neurodevelopmental delays, cancers, and endocrine disruption that may not appear for years.

Children are uniquely vulnerable. Kilo for kilo, they breathe more air, eat more food, and drink more water than adults. This means that their intake of toxic chemicals is far higher. Millions of children working in agriculture, or simply living near fields, face daily exposure to Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs).

UNICEF’s call for urgent action reinforces ours: to , strengthen health systems to detect and respond to poisoning, and establish pesticide‑free buffer zones where children live, learn, and play. We also call on governments and the international community to take decisive action by scaling up sustainable alternatives such as .

“It is time to bring these silent impacts out of the shadows. We must ensure that the health of our children is never again underestimated or overlooked.” – Foreword, George Laryea-Adjei, Director, Global Programme Division, UNICEF

Read the report: https://ceh.unicef.org/spotlight-risk/pesticides



UN Environment Programme in Asia Pacific
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Pesticide Action Network International