A/HRC/2/2 A/HRC/Sub.1/58/36 page 34 which constitutes evidence of their citizenship or their legal status, and to enjoy all the civil and political rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. They should enjoy full citizenship of the State of which they are nationals and have the right to participate without discrimination in the political life of that State and to take part in public affairs. Any denial of civil and political rights to the poor on the basis of their circumstances of extreme poverty, whether individual or collective, must be regarded as a case of serious discrimination. 16. Persons living in extreme poverty have the right to form a family, to support their children, to take care of them, to raise them, and to enjoy the fundamental dignity inherent in every human being, guaranteeing respect for privacy and family life. 17. Governments in particular have a duty to put an end to violence inflicted by State and non-State actors on persons living in extreme poverty, particularly women and children, and to provide adequate police protection. The State must draw up education programmes for the population in general, and the police forces in particular, in order to promote non-discrimination against persons living in poverty. Persons living in extreme poverty must enjoy the same rights as other persons and have access to justice free of discrimination. Any person responsible for an act of violence and discrimination against persons living in conditions of poverty must be brought to justice and punished. 18. The State must in particular ensure the protection of vulnerable population groups, including the homeless, street children, the disabled and the elderly, who are worst affected by extreme poverty. The State has an obligation to implement effective programmes for these particularly vulnerable groups. 19. States will adopt special measures to provide protection to the poor in respect of their dignity, their privacy, their integrity, their honour and their reputation. This protection must be effective and provided free of charge on an equal footing with other subjects of law. E. Right to food 20. Every human being has a right to adequate, appropriate, healthy food, and is entitled not to be exposed to the risk of hunger or starvation. The State and the international community are duty-bound to accord all human beings, individually or collectively, the right of physical and economic access to appropriate food. 21. Poor rural inhabitants are entitled, in order to feed themselves, to acquire effective ownership of their land and register that ownership in good and due form. States and the international community are duty-bound to uphold peasants’ rights to the ownership of their land and to encourage agrarian reforms that will afford access to additional land and will protect and demarcate the lands belonging to indigenous population groups and the lands and territory belonging to minorities descended from slaves and protect fish resources and small-scale fishing communities’ fishing grounds, nomadic herders’ grazing rights, and the hunting rights of those who live by hunting.