A/HRC/44/46 educators and social workers. Training health-care workers to overcome personal and institutional discriminatory attitudes should be implemented as a priority, alongside the monitoring of health-care services and health-care delivery. 43. Collection, analysis and dissemination of data, disaggregated by indicators of equality, should be a priority for delivering evidence-based policies, which should be designed, implemented and monitored in close collaboration with persons affected and their family members. Good practices implemented in the HIV/AIDS field should be followed. That field of action shows the importance of empowering individuals and communities to address and respond to discrimination, having developed an outstanding good practice for collecting data on stigmatization and assessing the levels of human rights enjoyment that involved persons living with HIV as primary stakeholders and executors, called the people living with HIV stigma index. Promotion of rights education for affected individuals, as well as the delivery of legal advice, together with the enactment of protective laws and policies and accountability in courts and tribunals, is strongly recommended. 44. Awareness-raising as a structural pillar of any leprosy-related policy framework should be grounded in evidence and give due consideration to local perspectives. Awareness-raising strategies should also be designed and implemented in close consultation with persons affected and communities in order to prevent any backlash against affected individuals. Strategies cannot rely on medical knowledge and information alone, nor be delivered under an individual-centred framework, but must employ accessible, intercultural and gender-, age- and disability-sensitive language and formats. Personal testimonies on the obstacles to living a full and dignified life, but also on how people survive discrimination, are the most effective instruments for achieving systemic change in mindsets. To that end, sharing positive experiences and the promotion of role models and leadership skills should also be employed as effective strategies. Different dissemination channels should be used, such as community-based and mainstream media, the Internet and social media, as well as artistic expressions and performances. B. Reparation and memorialization 45. Health and illness are not just biological phenomena. Accumulated knowledge in the field of medical anthropology has proved the difference between illness, meaning the bodily process itself, and disease, meaning the nosology produced by a given medical system, which is always culturally grounded. Diseases are biosocial constructs and, as the history of epidemics show, explanatory models of diseases can produce labelling and even spur institutionalized and structural stigmatization, of which the modern history of leprosy is a paradigmatic example. There was never scientific evidence to support the prophylactic segregation of persons affected by leprosy, and yet such segregation was widespread from the late nineteenth century until the late twentieth century – almost half a century after the discovery of a cure. There are still up to 2,000 leprosy colonies and villages active in the world today. 46. Segregation was very often accompanied by public campaigns aimed at educating the public on the dangers of interacting with persons affected by leprosy. The eradication of the disease from the public space was pursued at the expense of the rights of those affected by it. In many countries, marriage between persons affected was prohibited and, in some countries, forced sterilization was a standard practice. Stigma was the dolus behind this State policy, which continues to impact the lives of persons affected and their family members, therefore comprising a continuous violation. Due recognizing of that systemic and massive violation calls for reparation measures that not only redress harm at the individual level and recognize victims as rights holders, but also promote social integration. Such measures may be urgent for many persons affected, but also for their descendants, given their age. Second and third generations living in leprosy settlements should also be beneficiaries of complex reparation programmes. 47. The legal basis of the right to reparation is anchored in the provisions of international human rights instruments (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 8; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 2; International Convention on 12