A/HRC/19/32
19.
The Government of Canada drew attention to the need to clearly distinguish
between State and non-State actors and their respective human rights obligations. States as
the primary holders of international obligations had a duty to respect and fulfil, whereas
non-State actors had a duty to protect as well as to promote human rights. In this context,
the Government of South Africa stressed the co-responsibility of corporations for
environmental degradation, sub-standard labour conditions and child labour.
Analytic conclusion on the section
20.
Submissions on this section reiterate and concretise some of the main points brought
up in the discussion on the Rationale. All parties, again, agreed with the focus on women
and children as the key categories cutting across all forms of exposure to extreme poverty.
Several parties proposed to mention further categories as being particularly exposed, most
notably (old) age, disabilities, migration, refuge and asylum, ethnic, racial or linguistic
minority status, disease (in particular HIV/AIDS), traditional social status (such as caste),
location (especially in rural areas), and descent, especially indigenous descent.
Furthermore, the specificity of non-State actors, and, in particular, corporations, both in
relation to the nature of obligations attributable to them as well as their co-responsibility for
aspects of extreme poverty, was recurrently pointed out.
D.
Regarding part IV: “Overview of the main underlying and reinforcing
deprivations faced by persons living in extreme poverty”
Question: “Would you identify other underlying and reinforcing deprivations and
obstacles faced by persons in extreme poverty, in addition to the ones included in this
section of the report?”
21.
The Government of South Africa as well as the Congregation of Our Lady, the
International Budget Partnership (IBP) and the International Human Rights
Internship Program (IHRIP) recommended adding a reference to the larger economic
context which impacted on the incidence of extreme poverty. They noted, in particular,
distortions of trade and the global financial crisis and observed that fiscal policy and the
negative impact of public debt were often implicated in extreme poverty.
22.
The Governments of Ecuador and Finland as well as the National Human
Rights Commission of Mexico and the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) proposed that several groups might be additionally mentioned here as
being particularly subject to direct or indirect discriminatory practices, notably girl
children, rural migrants and migrant children, as well as people with disabilities.
23.
The Government of Norway and Switzerland’s Subcommittee on Poverty
Eradication, as well as the ATD Fourth World Movement, Eurochild, and UN-Habitat
all expressed concern that certain conditions specifically added to vulnerability to extreme
poverty; among these were maternal and child health, as well as mental health issues,
personal debt, drug addiction, unsafe housing, and statelessness and internal displacement.
Analytic conclusions on the section
24.
Responses to this part of the draft guiding principles oscillated between the macro
and the micro levels. On the former, some parties called for a more explicit mention of the
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