A/HRC/32/50/Add.1 positions in the public sector were to be cut by the end of 2015),1 in combination with increases in value-added-tax rates and cuts in social benefits, have led to a rise in poverty and a permanent state of social unrest.2 7. In addition to the financial crisis, Greece has faced major challenges regarding migrants and refugees, whose numbers have sharply increased recently due to its geographic location. More specifically, the country has become an entry point to the European Union and a transit point for hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, who enter the country mainly by crossing the northern border in Evros and via the eastern Aegean islands. III. Legal framework for combating racism A. International and regional human rights instruments 8. Greece is a State party to the major international human rights instruments: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its optional protocols; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its optional protocol; the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its optional protocol; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Rights of the Child and two of its optional protocols; the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its optional protocol; and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 9. Other major relevant instruments to which Greece is a party to include the Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol; and the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. Greece has not signed the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. 10. Greece also has ratified 98 treaties of the Council of Europe, 3 including the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Protocol Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13 and 14; the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings; the European Convention on the Exercise of Children’s Rights; the European Social Charter (revised); the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter Providing for a System of Collective Complaints; Protocol Nos. 1 and 2 to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and the European Interim Agreement on Social Security other than Schemes for Old Age, Invalidity and Survivors. 11. Greece has also signed but not ratified Protocol No. 12 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities; the Additional Protocol to the Convention on 1 2 3 4 Tyler Durden, “Greek public sector job cuts”, Zero Hedge, 3 December 2013, available from www.zerohedge.com. See www.hlhr.gr/index.php?MDL=pages&SiteID=1107. See official site of the Council of Europe Treaty Office on signatures with ratifications in respect of Greece (www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/search-on-states/-/conventions/treaty/search/states_coe).