Rural Women’s Right to a Secure and Dignified Life: Social Protection, Land and Labour Rights, and Climate Justice

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• February 20, 2026 Create Date
• February 20, 2026 Last Updated

Across Southeast Asia, rural women farmers, agricultural and migrant workers, and Indigenous women sustain food systems and rural economies. Yet they face land dispossession, labour exploitation, hazardous working conditions, and systemic exclusion from social protection.

This policy brief underscores that social justice for rural women cannot be achieved without secure access to land, labour rights, and climate-resilient livelihoods grounded in agroecology.

Drawing on research with partners - Research Centre for Gender, Family and Environment in Development (CGFED, Vietnam), Tenaganita (Malaysia), Sustainable Agriculture & Environment Development Association (SAEDA, Laos), Rural Women’s Association for Agroecology (RWAA, Cambodia), and Serikat Perempuan Indonesia (SERUNI, Indonesia) - it calls on governments and ASEAN to establish universal, gender-transformative social protection systems anchored in rural women’s rights to land and resources, safe and dignified work, and climate justice.