A/HRC/21/16 that regard, including the South African Schools Act of 1996, which prohibited corporal punishment in a school setting, and the 1997 Abolishment of Corporal Punishment Act, which was a law of general application. South Africa explained that the issue of complaints on compliance with treaty obligations had been taken to a higher level. A committee of relevant government departments had been set up to address the follow-up to the UPR and other reports. The committee would be working with the South African Human Rights Commission. Additionally a work plan was being developed to address not only reporting to human rights bodies and mechanisms but also the ratification of human rights instruments. The initiative had the support of various key authorities. 122. On poverty eradication, the delegation indicated that social assistance constituted the Government’s largest poverty alleviation measures, which provided social assistance in the form of income support to more than 15 million persons at a cost of 3.5 per cent of the gross domestic product. It was acknowledged that the income support would not suffice to change the fortunes of the people unless it was complimented by other initiatives. The antipoverty strategy incorporated education, one of the strong pillars of the country’s antipoverty initiative. South Africa expressed its belief that through education it would be able to improve the future possibilities of its people to participate actively in the labour market, making it possible for them to earn their own income to provide for their own livelihood and interrupting the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next. Those measures were supported by initiatives to provide health-care services for vulnerable groups. Poverty eradication was treated very seriously by the Government and efforts to expand the social safety net to cover as many persons as possible were continuous. It was reiterated that access to social assistance programmes had been extended to permanent residents as well as to persons who had been granted refugee status. As a result no one in the country currently suffered from lack of access to food. 123. South Africa indicated that it had noted a number of requests for information that it had been unable to respond to because of lack of time, and would provide the information at a later date. It thanked the delegations for their participation, their questions and the constructive recommendations that had been made. II. Conclusions and/or recommendations** 124. The following recommendations will be examined by South Africa, which will provide responses in due time, but no later than the twenty-first session of the Human Rights Council in September 2012. The response of South Africa to these recommendations will be included in the outcome report adopted by the Human Rights Council at its twenty-first session: ** 124.1. Complete its accession to the core human rights instruments that are still not yet ratified (Iraq); 124.2. Complete the ratification process for human rights treaties that it has signed, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OP-CAT) (United Kingdom); 124.3. Finalise the ratification process of the ICESCR (Hungary); 124.4. Consider ratifying the ICESCR (Brazil); 124.5. Ratify ICESCR (Chad); Conclusions and recommendations have not been edited. 15