A/HRC/43/45 57. In South Africa, debt collection is a significant “industry”; for example, the courts passed 18,973 judgments for debt with a total value of R342,1 million in May 2019 alone.73 A staggering 47,360 summonses were issued for debt in this short period. 58. Overindebtedness can not only deprive indebted persons of their economic, social and cultural rights, but also their civil and political rights by penalizing and punishing them in the criminal justice system. Such an occurrence has been observed in various regions across the world. For instance, in 2014, in Yemen, dozens of individuals were reportedly imprisoned as a result of their inability to pay their private debt. 74 In Sierra Leone, informal borrowing and lending for the purpose of petty trading may often end up in the criminal justice system, resulting in the arrest and detention of the debtors.75 59. Individuals from low-income backgrounds may accumulate debt through fines and fees levied by local authorities, such as traffic and parking fines. These may quickly snowball into larger sums when they enter the court system and face additional costs. 76 60. For people in a situation of vulnerability, the accumulation of fines and fees, which can also be the result of various forms of discrimination, can exacerbate consequences and sometimes culminate in amounts that they ultimately may not be in a position to pay. In 2009, a Canadian study conducted in Montreal concluded that, in comparison to the population in general, a disproportionate number of tickets for minor offences were delivered to the homeless; non-payment of tickets could lead to detention.77 61. For the poorest and most vulnerable, access to justice can be particularly challenging. According to the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, in addition to the costs of legal assistance, there are numerous other costs associated with accessing justice which constitute a major barrier for the poor, who simply cannot afford those expenditures. 78 Indirect costs can be incurred for the production of documents, transport or expertise, or because of loss of income when attending court, which can also ultimately contribute to household debt. F. Consumer debt 62. Consumer credit includes debts repaid by instalments and regular (revolving) credit. These debts can be contracted in various ways: from spending on food staples, educationrelated expenses, health services and medicines, to spending connected to the celebration of a national or religious holiday or the purchase of non-essential items, gambling or Internetbased games. 63. Access to credit through formal channels remains an important challenge for many, in particular for specific groups in vulnerable or marginalized situations. In some countries, the constant exposure of consumers to new lending “opportunities”, pressures and practices, such as unsolicited-credit cards or financial advertisements through mobile applications, may also contribute to household debt and overindebtedness. 64. For example, in Argentina, more than 7.7 million pensioners and other persons entitled to a universal child grant owe approximately $3,000 million to the national social security administration. The economic downturn, characterized by massive public debt and decreasing wage levels, has also led to a large number of cases of bankruptcy of social security beneficiaries in the past four years, millions of whom were forced to request credit from the social security administration to pay for basic goods and services. The number of those with social security debt is as high as 30 per cent of all pensioners (over 2.1 million 73 74 75 76 77 78 14 Submission by Stellenboch University-Legal Clinic. Human Rights Watch, “Yemen: Dozens Jailed for Debts”, 21 April 2014. Alison Thompson and Sabrina Mahtani, “Women, Debt & Detention: An Exploratory Report on Fraudulent Conversion and the Criminalisation of Debt in Sierra Leone,” AdvocAid, July 2012. The Aspen Institute, “Consumer debt: A Primer”, March 2018, p. 21. Christine Campbell and Paul Eid, “La judiciarisation des personnes itinerantes à Montréal: un profilage social”, Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, 2009. A/67/278, para. 51.