A/HRC/44/46 whether through direct or indirect discrimination. Such an obligation includes taking immediate measures to abolish or repeal discriminatory laws. Likewise, States must ensure that every public body, institution and service eliminates leprosy-related discriminatory practices. States are accountable for the cases in which any public authority perpetrates discriminatory acts against persons affected or their family members. 29. The principles and guidelines reflect the tenets of general comment No. 20 (2009) on non-discrimination in economic, social and cultural rights, in which the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights established that a person’s actual or perceived health status could not be a barrier to the realization of rights and that the protection of public health used as grounds for restricting the rights of any individual is a clear violation of the Covenant. The Committee also pointed out the duty of the State to adopt the measures necessary to address stigmatization on the grounds of actual or perceived health status. The principles and guidelines set out concrete situations in which States are obligated to prevent persons affected and their family members from being discriminated against. States also have a positive obligation to fight discrimination in the private sphere. States should undertake research on the root causes of discrimination, with systematic collection of data and thorough analysis of risk factors. Such research should be supported by lay experts. Through effective policies, States should establish positive measures to prevent discrimination and investigate, punish and repair any abuse. Such an obligation includes monitoring the private sector and the fields of education, work and health. 30. In the light of systemic discrimination and marginalization, discrimination on the grounds of leprosy must be tackled through an inclusive equality policy, as put forward by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. According to its general comment No. 6 (2018) on equality and non-discrimination, inclusive equality embraces a substantive model of equality based on redistribution to address inequalities, elimination of stigmatization and promotion of dignity, full and effective participation and accommodation of differences. A comprehensive anti-discrimination policy also entails the need for creating mechanisms to receive and provide quick and effective responses to complaints of discriminatory events, both in the administrative sphere and the judicial sphere. Such mechanisms should be implemented within an accessibility framework and in full respect of the legal capacity of persons affected and their family members. B. Accessibility and independent living 31. Persons affected and their families continue to experience informal segregation from community life, as well as multiple barriers to access to fundamental rights. The widespread lack of reparation measures and the limited reach of awareness-raising to redress the iatrogenic stigma created by the prophylactic segregation practiced in the past by States are some of the root causes of persistent informal segregation. Persons affected by leprosy and many of their family members are entitled to the rights provided under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the basis of not only physical and psychosocial impairments, but also of the impairing effects of leprosy-related stigmatization. 32. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities elaborates thoroughly on the multiple barriers to equal participation, which can occur in isolation or simultaneously, result from direct or indirect discrimination, be grounded on one actual or perceived characteristic or on the intersection between several ones and take multiple forms, namely, institutional, extra-institutional, physical, socioeconomic, attitudinal, environmental, informational, educational and cultural, among others. Persons affected, and also their families, are faced with many of the aforementioned barriers to participate on an equal basis in society with others. 33. According to article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, interpreted in relation to articles 1, 3 and 4, and general comment No. 6 of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in order to enforce the rights of persons with disabilities, States should guarantee accessibility, reasonable accommodation and individual support. In the light of its general comment No. 2 (2014) on accessibility, the 9