A/HRC/41/8 10. The national frameworks for equality and non-discrimination had also been strengthened with the approval of the National Plan for Sexual Diversity and the preparation of the National Plan on Racial Equity. 11. Given the exponential increase in the number of people seeking to reside in Uruguay or who had arrived in search of protection, the institutional framework on implementing the policy on migration and asylum had been strengthened, with support from the International Organization for Migration and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Uruguay was making constant efforts to ensure access to all basic services and fundamental rights for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. It had increased human and financial resources, strengthened inter-institutional work and accelerated regularization processes, seeking to eliminate bureaucratic barriers. Act No. 18.250 of 2008 regulating the country’s migration policy promoted a rights-based approach and the cross-cutting nature of migration through the National Migration Directorate. The Directorate brought together several national institutions and civil society. 12. The National Human Rights Institution and Ombudsman’s Office had been accredited with A status in May 2016. For its part, the national preventive mechanism against torture had begun monitoring places of detention in 2013. It had functional independence from the public authorities and autonomy. Recently, the mechanism and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Prison System had signed a formal agreement on coordination and cooperation in all areas, which included provision for joint visits. 13. An honorary commission had been created to analyse the legal alternatives for implementing the voting rights of Uruguayans abroad. The Government was committed to upholding those rights and hoped to be able to do so in the near future. 14. Poverty reduction and the eradication of extreme poverty were priority objectives for Uruguay. All the measures adopted had resulted in a sustained reduction in poverty, leading to the achievement of historically low poverty rates. In 2017, the poverty index in Uruguay had fallen to 7.9 per cent, extreme poverty had been reduced to 0.1 per cent and inequality to 0.38 per cent, according to the Gini index. According to the most recent report of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Uruguay was the only country in the region that had fulfilled the United Nations objective of reducing poverty by half and extreme poverty to less than 3 per cent. Child poverty had declined drastically, from 59 per cent in 2005 to 15 per cent in 2018. However, the gap between child and adult poverty had widened, which was one of the great challenges currently. 15. The implementation of the National Care System had begun under the current administration. The system recognized care as a right and promoted autonomy and assistance for people in situations of dependency. 16. The National Integrated Health System had been established and strengthened. The rates of infant and maternal mortality had been reduced. The levels of malnutrition and teenage pregnancy were low, as was the incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases. That clearly showed the impact of the action aimed, in particular, at the most vulnerable parts of the population. Those results were also linked to broader intersectoral policies, including on the prevention and reduction of risk factors to non-communicable diseases, such as tobacco control. 17. Important institutional advances had been made with regard to the serious human rights violations that had occurred during the authoritarian regime and dictatorship between 1968 and 1985. In particular, the Truth and Justice Working Group and the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office in Crimes against Humanity had been created. That office had taken over existing cases and initiated new cases, applying the new Code of Criminal Procedure, processing claims of unconstitutionality and carrying out significant work on international cooperation on those issues. Since 2013, the Supreme Court of Justice had declared, in some cases, the unconstitutionality of articles 2 and 3 of Act No. 18.831, which rendered the law on the expiration of the punitive claims of the State null and void. As that declaration was effective only in the specific cases that had been brought before the court, in practice the sentence had not constituted the closing of judicial investigations. 3