A/HRC/28/35 children may be born into or acquire later in childhood owing to external circumstances.47 Child-sensitive social protection also means reaching out to especially vulnerable groups of children, including orphaned children, children affected by HIV/AIDS, children with disabilities, migrant children, children from marginalized ethnic minorities and indigenous groups and other economically and socially excluded groups.48 39. Cash transfers directed at families with small children have often contributed to the realization of children’s right to health by increasing immunization, regular medical checkups and reducing the risk of child mortality. According to evaluations of the Juntos scheme of Peru, that cash transfer programme conditional on prenatal and postnatal visits led to an increase of approximately 65 per cent in such visits to health clinics, and a reduction in home births in areas where there were high levels of maternal mortality.49 Similarly, food transfers can be a valuable component of a broader approach to ensuring the right to food.50 Old-age pensions also appear to have positive impacts on the lives of children.51 Some positive impacts in the enjoyment of the right to education have also been shown. For example, data compiled by the World Bank indicates that conditional cash transfers had positive effects on school enrolment and attendance, and that they occasionally helped to reduce the gender gap in school enrolment.52 Social protection guarantees can also prevent and reduce child labour.53 Evidence from Latin America suggests that greater access to unemployment and disability benefits directly reduces the prevalence of child labour.54 B. Older persons 40. Income security in old age was recognized as a fundamental human right by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (arts. 22 and 25). In its general comment No. 19, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights explicitly notes that States cannot rely solely on contributory systems for old-age pensions, as many individuals work in the informal sector, as unpaid carers in the household, or are unable to meet the level of contributions required to obtain social security benefits. States must therefore consider the establishment of a non-contributory pension system (para. 15). States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights should, within the limits of available resources, provide non-contributory old-age benefits to assist, at the very least, all older persons who, when reaching the retirement age, are not entitled to an old-age insurance-based pension. 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 12 See Department for International Development, United Kingdom, HelpAge International, Hope and Homes for Children, Institute of Development Studies, ILO, Overseas Development Institute, Save the Children UK, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, Advancing Child-Sensitive Social Protection (2009). See, e.g., CRC/C/AND/CO/2 and A/HRC/11/9, paras. 73–83. Armando Barrientos and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, The effects of non-contributory social transfers in developing countries: A Compendium (ILO, Geneva, 2010), p. 9. See Armando Barrientos, Rebecca Holmes and James Scott, Social Assistance in Developing Countries Database (Manchester, Brooks World Poverty Institute, The University of Manchester, and the Overseas Development Institute, 2006). Mark Gorman, Age and Security: How social pensions can deliver effective aid to poor older people and their families (London, HelpAge International, 2004), p. 32. Ariel Fiszbein and Norber Schady, “Conditional Cash Transfers: reducing present and future poverty”, World Bank Policy Research Report No. 47603 (2009), chap. V. See ILO, World Report on Child Labour: Economic vulnerability, social protection and the fight against child labour (Geneva, 2013). F.C. Rosati, A. Cigno and Z. Tzannatos, “Child Labor Handbook”, Social Protection Discussion Paper No. 0206 (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2002).