A/HRC/42/21 2015,40 and the shooting dead of an Indian man and the injury of another man whom the attacker believed to be of Middle Eastern descent, in Olathe, Kansas, United States, in 2017,41 are examples of this impact. B. Impact on economic, social and cultural rights 22. Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate housing.42 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has asserted that the right to housing should be seen as the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity, which includes legal protection against forced evictions. 43 Many forced evictions result from internal strife and communal or ethnic violence 44 and include the involuntary displacement of people from their lands and communities. 45 23. In Central America and Mexico, organized criminal groups characterized by extreme firearm violence have produced an epidemic of forced evictions that impacts the right to adequate housing. Evidence suggests that approximately 2 per cent of the population of Mexico – or 1.65 million persons – changed residence between 2006 and 2011 owing to the threat or risk of violence by organized criminal groups, suggesting that an average of 330,000 persons are internally displaced per year. In El Salvador, 2.1 per cent of the population changed their place of residence in just one year (2012) as a result of threats of violence by organized criminal groups. Almost one third of these (130,000 persons) had been displaced two or more times that same year.46 24. The right to health recognizes the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. While it includes the right to health care, it also embraces a wide range of socioeconomic factors that promote conditions in which people can lead a healthy life, such as food and nutrition, housing, access to safe and potable water and adequate sanitation, safe and healthy working conditions and a healthy environment.47 25. Protracted firearm violence among civilians can have a grave impact on the right to health. Owing to their severity, gunshot injuries have a negative impact on victims’ longterm mental and physical health. Some require permanent, lifelong care, while others lose their ability to work due to physical and mental impairment or disability. Others cannot afford the expensive treatments required to stabilize and rehabilitate persons suffering from gunshot injuries. 48 In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, the average cost of treating a gunshot wound ranges from $130 to $260,49 which is anywhere from 8 to 16 per cent of national gross annual income per capita.50 26. In some areas, individuals must cope with an overwhelming fear of firearm violence, which has an impact on their mental health. In a victimization poll conducted by the Government of Brazil in 2013, for example, more than half of Brazilians indicated that they 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 6 Reuters, “White suspect arrested in killing of nine at black U.S. church”, 18 June 2015. Reuters, “Kansas man charged with killing Indian in possible hate crime”, 24 February 2017. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 11 (1). See the Committee’s general comment No. 4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing, paras. 7–8. See the Committee’s general comment No. 7 (1997) on forced evictions, para. 6. See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/ForcedEvictions.aspx. David James Cantor, “The new wave: forced displacement caused by organized crime in Central America and Mexico”, Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 33, issue 3 (September 2014), pp. 36–37. See E/C.12/2000/4. See the contributions of Amnesty International and the Commission Nationale de Lutte contre la Prolifération et la Circulation Illicite des Armes Légères et de Petit Calibre. According to the contribution of the Commission Nationale de Lutte contre la Prolifération et la Circulation Illicite des Armes Légères et de Petit Calibre, the average cost for a firearm wound ranges from 75,000 to 150,000 CFA francs, which was approximately $130 to $260 at the exchange rate on 7 May 2019. The World Bank estimates that Côte d’Ivoire had a gross national income per capita of $1,580 in 2017. See https://data.worldbank.org/country/cote-divoire.