A/HRC/26/7 tackled as a national emergency, through the National Assistance Plan for Social Emergency Plan (PANES), to counteract the threats posed by extreme poverty and marginalization. Two years after its implementation, the Plan had been replaced by the Equity Plan. Legislative and institutional instruments to protect economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights, had also been strengthened. 8. Uruguay had also addressed with determination the debt that the society held vis-àvis its recent past and with the victims of the serious violations of human rights that had been committed during the military dictatorship, by taking measures to allow the investigation, trial and conviction of persons responsible for those crimes. 9. The delegation referred to eight aspects, outlined below, that were illustrative of the efforts made by Uruguay to improve the quality of its human rights policies, norms and institutions. 10. Strengthening of the normative and institutional human rights framework. Efforts in that area included the establishment of the Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic; a secretariat for the serious violations of human rights under the dictatorship; and a national human rights institution, created by law, which was in the process of being accredited by the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. 11. Health, education and housing. Those areas received special attention in public policies. Between 2005 and 2008 the public education budget had been increased and the General Law on Education had been passed. However, high dropout and repetition rates in secondary education were a problem. Uruguay continued to implement health-care reform, building an integrated system that would achieve universal coverage. 12. Equality. Progress had been made in the implementation of equality policies and measures to prevent all forms of discrimination. 13. Measures to combat racial discrimination. Tools for the development of policies that took into consideration racial equity had been developed. In 2013 the Government adopted a law that provided that affirmative action in public and private spheres targeted at people of African descent was in the public interest and that reserved 8 per cent of vacant public positions for that group of the population. 14. Employment policies. The combination of economic policy measures and specific programmes aimed at the insertion of unemployed persons in the labour market had reduced unemployment to a historically low level. Improvements relating to income redistribution had been made when measures aimed at improving the rights of workers were being implemented, through the strengthening of laws relating to the protection of specific, more vulnerable groups, such as the Law on Domestic Workers and rural workers, and the establishment of salary councils and tripartite negotiation. 15. Combating poverty and extreme poverty. Poverty rates had dropped from 30 to 12.4 per cent, and the extreme poverty rate, which had reached 5 per cent towards the end of the crisis in 2002, was currently below 1 per cent. The objective of the Government continued to be the eradication of extreme poverty. 16. Reforms in the penitentiary system. Conditions had been improved, in accordance with recommendations made by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, who had visited the country. The problem of overcrowding had been tackled with determination in detention centres, with significant improvements; the delegation was thus able to announce that overcrowding would be eliminated by mid-2014. 4