A/HRC/19/12 8. Women were the heads of three of the five branches of Government, which demonstrated the democratic transformation that placed women in a leadership role. 9. The United Nations had certified that in the past 12 years, poverty and inequalities had noticeably been reduced, and that freedoms and democratic participation had deepened. This could be seen in the reduction of extreme poverty, an indicator that went from 21 per cent in 1998 to 7.1 per cent in 2010, thereby achieving the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG). The Gini coefficient was 0.3898 in the first quarter of 2010, which indicated that Venezuela was the country with the least inequality in Latin America. 10. The Government had an accumulated social investment of 393,478 million dollars between 1999 and 2010, and it duplicated this investment between 2007 and 2010. 11. The Venezuelan Constitution guaranteed uncensored freedom of expression, but whoever exercised this right should assume responsibility for the contents expressed, acknowledging the right to accurate, timely, impartial and uncensored information. Encouragement had been provided for the creation of 1,225 alternative and community media outlets that coexisted with commercial and public outlets, as well as for the granting of 139 concessions to commercial television stations, and for the creation of 37 community television stations, which constituted the democratization of the radio-electric spectrum. 12. Fifteen electoral processes were carried out from 1999 until 2010, demonstrating the democratic mission and the reaffirmation of sovereignty and self-determination through free, secret and universal elections, which constituted the full exercise of the political freedoms Venezuelans enjoy. 13. Venezuela, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), was the fifth country in the world to recognize the right to food in its legislation, guaranteeing it through food programmes and networks that distributed food at fair prices. This had led to a 58 per cent decrease in the infant malnutrition rate, which went from 7.7 per cent in 1990 to 3.2 per cent in 2009, placing Venezuela among the five Latin American States with the lowest malnutrition rate in children up to 5 years old. 14. With regard to education, school enrolment in 2009–2010 was 7.7 million children and adolescents, increasing by 24 per cent between 1998 and 2010. The net graduation rate increased by 28 per cent in preschool education, 7 per cent in elementary school, and 24 per cent in middle education, reaching 98 per cent of the population. The school dropout rate decreased from 5 per cent to 2 per cent in a decade. In 2010, UNESCO recognized Venezuela as the country with the fifth-highest gross enrolment rate in higher education in the world, at 85 per cent, which was also the second-highest rate in the region. 15. In the realm of health, the Barrio Adentro Mission was created in 2003. Thanks to this Mission, 24 million Venezuelans received free health care in 13,510 public health centres. 16. Regarding environmental rights, Venezuela had increased supply of drinking water to residential networks, offering access to over 90 per cent of the population, which exceeded the relevant Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 17. The Constitution set forth for the first time a system to protect indigenous and Afrodescendant populations, valuing the contributions of their cultures to the Venezuelan identity and social institutions. This system had incorporated political participation mechanisms at all levels, which guaranteed that indigenous populations were represented in instances such as the National Assembly. 18. The path taken towards socialism had demonstrated that it was possible to break the chains of hunger, oppression and obscurity, and rise up towards a society of decent and equal men and women, thereby seeing the foundation of a truly human multicultural 4