A/HRC/44/46 of lands and property has resulted in the handing over of the usufruct and ownership of property of houses to persons affected and their family members in the states of Acre, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. In Japan, pioneering memorialization initiatives stand out, such as the creation of museums and the preservation and study of the artistic production of persons affected who were forcibly segregated. In Brazil and Japan, there are innovative experiences of participatory health-care management and health-care provision in former leprosy colonies. In Taiwan Province of China, strategies are put into place by civil society to ensure that older people affected who are still living in segregated communities are able to live in a dignified manner. In Ghana and Togo, civil society organizations have reunited families living in segregated facilities by assisting them in their return home, if desirable and possible. V. Empowerment, with a focus on vulnerable groups 53. As documented by the Special Rapporteur, leprosy-related discrimination is multilayered – it frequently intersects with discrimination against other marginalized groups. Furthermore, the impact of stigmatization on the grounds of leprosy on the lives of persons affected is proportional to their vulnerability and resilience. She recognizes that the call for special attention to be paid to, and for the protection of, groups that are more vulnerable to leprosy-related discrimination, as set out in the principles and guidelines, identifies women and children as priority target groups. In order to prevent paternalistic approaches to vulnerability, the Special Rapporteur underscores three critical safeguards: vulnerability is not an ontological feature of a group of persons; vulnerability is often coupled with subordination, understood by the Special Rapporteur as the historical devaluation of some groups of people under hierarchical social structures that, by producing and reproducing an unequal distribution of power, severely constrain their autonomy and participation; and vulnerability reduction policies must focus on building the autonomy of target populations by promoting their empowerment. 54. Although eradicating vulnerability might not be feasible, diminishing it through policymaking and institutional arrangements is viable. Reinforcing the principle of autonomy implies not only recognizing the independence of individual viewpoints, choices, values and beliefs, but also creating conditions that can enable individuals to act autonomously. A human rights-based approach to vulnerability includes making groups in vulnerable situations the preferential beneficiaries of public policies in order to guarantee their full enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms. Vulnerability is at the core of the elaboration of norms, when factors such as disability, age, migration status, deprivation of liberty, refugee status or ethnicity are considered in human rights standards. Furthermore, international human rights law has come to recognize the specificity of the economic, social and political conditions of certain groups, responding to their struggles with specific instruments for protecting their rights, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). 55. The obligation of the State to protect, promote and fulfil human rights is, for people living in vulnerable situations, inextricably linked to taking all measures necessary to empower them. Through empowerment, marginalized persons or persons in disadvantaged situations achieve greater control over their lives, furthering their democratic engagement with enhanced critical understanding about their own settings and their relation to power relations and hegemonic social structures. Common elements to the various definitions of empowerment are that it is a process, has a dimension of collective involvement, and involves active participation, critical reflection, awareness-raising, understanding, and access and control over important decisions and resources. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is built upon the recognition that development is not only transforming the material conditions of people in disadvantaged circumstances, but also implies providing them with a voice and choice. The empowerment of individuals and groups can contribute to transforming laws, policies, practices, norms and power relations. 14