A/HRC/43/43/Add.1 Government to enshrine the rights contained in the Convention into national law, as a positive step in the protection of the right to housing of internally displaced persons in the country. The urgent allocation of the necessary resources, both by the Government and the international community, is also critical in order to address the housing and shelter needs of internally displaced persons: funds available to the humanitarian community only covered 8.6 per cent of the needs in September 2019.51 VI. Discrimination of vulnerable groups 57. Article 2 (2) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides that the right to housing should be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. The Special Rapporteur met with members and representatives of vulnerable groups who suffer discrimination impeding their enjoyment of the right to housing. A. Women 58. Women experience sex- and gender-based discrimination in almost every aspect of life in Nigeria. A particularly concerning manifestation of such discrimination is domestic violence. Although data is scant, one study found that close to a third of all of Nigerian women had experienced physical violence at the hands of their intimate partners. 52 Violence seems to remain prevalent despite the enactment of the 2015 Violence against Persons (Prohibition) Act. 59. Inadequate housing can also cause violations of women’s right to sexual and reproductive health. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that those rights extend beyond sexual and reproductive health care to the underlying determinants of sexual and reproductive health, including access to safe and potable water, adequate sanitation, adequate food and nutrition and adequate housing. 53 The Special Rapporteur heard testimonies of women in informal settlements who had been raped when fetching water and when going to the toilet. 60. In informal settlements, women facing domestic violence lack support structures and resources to flee to safety. As part of a practice that has been condemned by the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), women walking alone at night are indiscriminately subjected to arbitrary arrest and sometimes even to sexual violence at the hands of the police, merely because they are suspected of being sex workers. 54 The number of emergency shelters available across the country is clearly insufficient. According to civil society organizations, the availability of shelters is better in Lagos and in Abuja than in the rest of the country, 55 which is troubling considering that, in 2014, only one government-run shelter was available for female victims of violence in Lagos (a city with over 20 million inhabitants), in addition to two NGO-run shelters. Even women fleeing violence who have the resources to rent 51 52 53 54 55 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, North-East Nigeria: Humanitarian Situation Update, p. 12. World Health Organization, World Report on Violence and Health 2002 (Geneva, 2002), p. 90. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 22 (2016) on the right to sexual and reproductive health, para. 7. In one case brought before the Community Court of Justice, Dorothy Chioma Njemanze and others v. the Federal Republic of Nigeria, four women were abducted and assaulted sexually, physically and verbally by Nigerian law enforcement officers who accused them of engaging in prostitution because they were in the street at night. Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, “Nigeria: domestic violence, including in Lagos State; legislation, recourse, state protection and services available to victims (2011–October 2014)” (10 November 2014). 13