A/HRC/31/77 with the change of government in December 2014. Under the leadership of the Deputy Minister, the Interministerial Committee on Human Rights had been set up and had begun work on an action plan to promote and protect human rights in Haiti. The preparation of this action plan offered a unique opportunity to incorporate recommendations made by the Independent Expert and by other United Nations bodies. For this, however, it would be necessary to have a human rights entity, attached either to the Prime Minister’s Office or to another ministry with sufficient authority to coordinate the work of the government agencies active in this sphere and to broker the adoption of a cross-cutting human rights policy within the executive branch, from where it would subsequently be extended throughout the State and society. 18. In his previous report, the Independent Expert had commended the Government for incorporating a number of international instruments into Haitian legislation and for enacting various laws. However, the Government has still not ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance and the Inter-American Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance. 19. Haiti has not submitted its fourteenth periodic report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It did, however, submit its eighth and ninth periodic reports to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in October 2014 and they were reviewed in July 2015; and its initial report was considered by the Human Rights Committee in November 2014. 20. Given that the regular sessions of the National Assembly ended on the second Monday of September 2014, the ratification instruments could not be voted on for the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. This task would fall to the new National Assembly following the legislative elections in 2015. A. Social inequality and economic, social and cultural rights 21. The deep social inequality that pervades Haitian society lies at the root of the country’s critical human rights situation, as manifested in the fact that most Haitians do not enjoy the full exercise of their economic, social and cultural rights. (a) Priority action to eradicate illiteracy 22. As previously recommended by the Independent Expert, tackling this facet of inequality requires that everyone, without exception, be afforded access to a quality education. The effort needs to focus first and foremost on promptly eradicating illiteracy, which is prevalent among nearly one half of the adult population: the literacy rate among Haitians aged 15 and older stands at 48.7 per cent according to the United Nations Development Programme.1 23. Reducing inequality takes time and requires structural programmes that go beyond just providing social assistance. Steps must therefore be taken urgently to promote the right to education, which in turn opens up access to the right to work, to food, to housing and to 1 GE.16-01946 See http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/HTI. 5