A/HRC/41/34/Add.1 13. While overall poverty has decreased in recent years, most people in Kyrgyzstan continue to live just above the poverty line.9 Despite the continued efforts to keep the social protection scheme that was in place under the Soviet Union, the standard of living, as measured by gross national income per capita, decreased between 1990 and 2017 by approximately 4.8 per cent.10 14. Access to economic and social rights, such as the right to health, is affected by elements other than income poverty alone, including location. In Kyrgyzstan, the level of deprivation (namely, the lack of basic necessities or assets that a person has been used to for a long period of time) continues to be high in rural areas, where services are often in place but underresourced. 15. A large degree of inequality exists between families with a low income and those with a high one. The mortality rate of children under 5 years of age is 1.6 times higher in rural areas than in urban areas, while the neonatal, infant and under-5 mortality rates in the lowest income quintile are more than double those of the highest income quintile. 11 Preventable child deaths are disproportionately concentrated in remote areas, with more than 80 per cent occurring in the first year of life as a result of diarrhoea, pneumonia or complications during the perinatal care period. B. Normative and institutional framework 16. Kyrgyzstan is party to most international human rights instruments, including the complaints procedures under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. It has also accepted the inquiry procedures under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 17. Kyrgyzstan is in the process of ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which it signed in 2011, and is yet to ratify the complaints procedures under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It has not signed or ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. 18. The Special Rapporteur highlights the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a much needed step that will boost the work already begun in the progressive elimination of barriers faced by persons with disabilities. He was encouraged to learn that the ratification process was under way at the time of drafting the present report. 19. Kyrgyzstan has ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the main United Nations conventions relating to drug control. It has received visits from various special procedure mandate holders. The two most recent visits were by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (see A/HRC/19/61/Add.2) and the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material (see A/HRC/25/48/Add.1). Kyrgyzstan also received a follow-up visit by the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in September 2018. 20. Kyrgyzstan underwent a review in the context of the universal periodic review in 2010 and 2015; the next review is scheduled for January 2020. During the most recent review in 2015 (see A/HRC/29/4), Kyrgyzstan was commended for, inter alia, its readiness to cooperate with international human rights mechanisms, the reforms initiated to implement recommendations made at the previous review and establishing a human rights 9 10 11 In 2015, 77 per cent of the population lived either below the poverty line or just above it (see OECD, 2018 Development Pathways, pp. 27–28). UNDP, “Human development indices and indicators”, p. 2. See www.unicef.org/kyrgyzstan/health-and-child-survival. 5