A/HRC/55/51/Add.1
could set up a migrant and refugee assistance service, accessible for free online or by
telephone, to provide assistance and information on available public and other services and
on addressing practical problems that such people may face. The Government should also set
up a task force for migrant and refugee families on how to address specific issues of concern,
such as inaccessible social housing and how to validate education certificates, qualifications
or prior learning, especially when documentation is not available in their home country.
VII. Conclusions and recommendations
73.
Paraguay must be commended for all its efforts and encouraged to pursue these
paths. It must be supported in addressing the many remaining economic, social and
development challenges that it faces. The Special Rapporteur considers that it is time
for the Government of Paraguay to build upon the many positive steps that it has
already taken. It needs to transform its legal and political commitments and social
empathy for people of all backgrounds into even stronger and concrete action and
mechanisms to address any obstacle for the full protection of human rights. In this
context, the Special Rapporteur make the following recommendations.
74.
The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government of Paraguay:
(a)
Adopt comprehensive national human rights legislation to cover the full
range of human rights that it has accepted by ratifying human rights treaties;
(b)
Ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, as well as, at the regional level, 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;
(c)
Recognize the competence to receive and examine individual
communications by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which
could strengthen the respect of minority rights in the country;
(d)
Mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals into the implementation
of its legislation and the elaboration of policies, in particular Goals 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15
and 16, when it comes to the protection of minority rights, while congratulating the
country on its commitment to the Goals;
(e)
Make efforts towards the implementation and the allocation of financial
and human resources to the existing administrative and legal human rights mechanisms
and initiatives;
(f)
Improve the powers of the Ombudsman through more precise strategies
and action plans to better allocate the resources of the Office of the Ombudsman and
to enhance its political independence; alternatively, a national human rights institution
should be established that complies fully with the Paris Principles, having a broad
mandate on universal human rights standards and being autonomous and independent
from the government;
(g)
Make efforts to adopt a national law against all forms of discrimination,
for instance, by bringing back the process to enact the draft law against all forms of
discrimination, which has been pending at the legislative level since 2015;
(h)
Prepare a national human rights plan to reflect agreements and
consensuses reached with State institutions and civil society, with a view to being
adopted, and allocate sufficient resources for this purpose;
(i)
Set up a migrant and refugee assistance service, accessible online or by
telephone, free of charge, in order to provide assistance and practical information for
these individuals, and establish a task force for migrant and refugee families to assist
them with housing and education issues, such as the validation of education certificates;
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