A/HRC/7/32
page 10
45. Due to the high percentage of undocumented persons throughout the world, the
International Federation of Social Workers proposed that the second sentence of paragraph 15
recognize the right of persons living in extreme poverty to be registered at birth, entitling them to
an identification document or other document constituting evidence of their legal status.
46. The NGO Committee for Social Development suggested that the draft guiding principles
acknowledge that the inadequacy of policies for some groups of migrants effectively
criminalizes the poor and proposed that the draft guiding principles recognize that economic
refugees should also have access to rights. The Committee called for the recognition of the land
rights of various indigenous peoples. It also suggested that the draft guiding principles recognize
States as violators of civil and political rights when they fail to protect and act in a corrupt
system.
47. Light for the World suggested stressing in paragraph 15 the importance of effective
participation of persons living in extreme poverty.
48. Care International considered the drawing up of education programmes, as proposed in
paragraph 17, to be insufficient and suggested that the paragraph require States to allocate
adequate resources to develop such programmes and stipulate that they monitor and follow up on
these programmes.
49. Light for the World and Care International proposed expanding the list in paragraph 15
of groups whose protection should be ensured by States to include people with disabilities,
people with mental illnesses, and indigenous people. Light for the World suggested that the
phrase “subjects of law” be removed from paragraph 19.
50. HelpAge International and Sightsavers International suggested adding distinct
guidelines on the right to identity as well as on the right to social security. In particular, they
highlighted the need to give persons living in extreme poverty access to identification
documentation that would allow them to take advantage of other entitlements including health
care, education and employment. They suggested the draft guiding principles require States to
provide regular and predictable income in the form of non-contributory cash transfers to poor
persons unable to make regular payments into national insurance or contributory pension
schemes that would guarantee them an adequate standard of living, and proposed that States
unable to make such payments on their own be required to seek the assistance of the
international community, which would be obligated to provide such assistance.
E. Right to food
51. The Government of Colombia suggested rephrasing the second sentence in paragraph 20
to read “the State and the international community should guarantee each human being,
individually and in community, the rights to access food physically and provide him with the
economic means to have access to basic food supply”. The Government of Colombia also
suggested replacing “agrarian reform” in the second sentence of paragraph 21 with “mechanisms
and policies” and “minorities descended from slaves” in the same sentence with
“Afro-descendants”.
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