A/HRC/41/14 vulnerable groups and areas, including women, children, persons with disabilities and rural communities. Efforts had also been directed towards housing, utilities, transportation and communication in order to improve the standard of living. 10. Cultural rights were enshrined in all national laws, the National Charter, the Macro Policy and all other legal and institutional instruments and practices. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recognized the city of Asmara as a world cultural heritage site for its futurist and modernist architecture. 11. Food security efforts in Eritrea had transcended linear targets of adequate cereal production commensurate with annual national demand. The irrigation system had expanded and farmers were empowered to increase household and national food security. 12. Eritrea had achieved all the health-related Millennium Development Goals and remained committed to the Sustainable Development Goals. Outreach programmes and various campaigns, including on vaccination, had been effective, and infant mortality and maternal mortality rates had decreased. 13. Education was free from kindergarten to tertiary levels. The Ministry of Education had continued its focus on and substantial investment in improving access to and quality of education, with special emphasis on rural communities and girls. 14. Advancements had been made in the empowerment of women and girls, and in combating discriminatory cultural norms and harmful traditional practices. Grass-roots movements had become effective instruments in eradicating harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and early marriage. However, the need for greater coordination and capacity-building to strengthen monitoring activities, as well as the collection and management of pertinent data, remained a challenge. 15. Reproductive health committees had been established as a pilot project in five junior and senior secondary schools in each region, and awareness-raising campaigns had been conducted for students on issues relating to gender, reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases. 16. Yearly action plans had been developed and focused on the protection of vulnerable children. Child well-being committees, established at subregional level, had empowered communities and families across the nation. 17. The Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare had implemented policies aimed at ensuring that no person under the age of 18 years was engaged in an occupation that jeopardized his or her physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. The Government continued to strengthen monitoring and inspection of the prevalence of child labour in workplaces. 18. Efforts to combat and eradicate trafficking in persons had intensified, including at the regional level through the African Union-Horn of Africa initiative on human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. Many people had continued to fall victim to criminal networks of human traffickers. Eritrea had for years called for an independent international body to investigate and bring those responsible to justice. 19. A workshop held in in May 2015 to finalize a comprehensive national policy on persons with disabilities had culminated in an outcome document that charted the needed course of action. Community-based interventions to reintegrate persons with disabilities had been strengthened. 20. The Government had expanded access to justice, reviewed legal codes and consolidated the independence and integrity of the judiciary and the prosecution services. To promote the efficiency and synergy of the three-tier court system, as well as the military court and special court, digitization of the courts’ activities was in progress through software development, electronic data storing and intranet networking. Personnel employed in the justice system had received on-the-job training. 21. In May 2015, the new Penal Code and Civil Code and their related Procedures had been published. They incorporated provisions from international human rights instruments. A nationwide public awareness campaign to introduce the new laws was ongoing. 3