Denial of rights to vulnerable groups

Members of groups that are particularly vulnerable to arbitrary deprivation of their human rights and fundamental freedoms because of characteristics for which they are not responsible and which they are not in a position to change, such as children, mentally retarded persons, disable persons, persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, persons born out of wedlock, non-citizens, and members of indigenous populations, are usually considered to be entitled to special measures to ensure their enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms and to protect their welfare and, yet, these rights are frequently denied.

The so-called vulnerable groups, which include children, women, migrant workers, the old and the poor, are undeniably the most exposed to and the most seriously affected by massive human rights violations.

In a document entitled Overall Socio-economic Perspective of the World Economy to the Year 2000, the United Nations comments that, as the overall economic prospects for Africa and Asia are unfavourable, with very slow or nil income growth, the incomes of the poor would not rise enough to eliminate poverty and undernutrition. The World Bank adds that 0.7 per cent of GDP, which would be equivalent to a 20 per cent income tax on the richest fifth of the world's population, would be sufficient to raise the income of all the poor in Africa to just above the poverty threshold. Of course, the advanced economies are also suffering from the current world economic crisis. They have been forced as a result to adopt drastic measures which have led to mass unemployment, inflation and real insecurity.