who traditionally experience difficulties in exercising the right to water, including: minority groups, indigenous peoples, women, refugees, internally displaced persons and migrant workers. States should also take steps to ensure that indigenous peoples’ access to water on their ancestral lands is protected, and that indigenous peoples can control their access. Access to adequate water should also be available to nomadic and traveller communities at traditional and designated sites. Retrogressive measures are presumed to be prohibited by the Covenant. As with other rights, when developing states are concluding agreements that adversely affect the rights of people within their jurisdiction, the government may argue that they cannot accept the agreement because there is an international standard (or minimum threshold) below which individuals and groups may not fall. General Recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women Health In General Recommendation no. 24, the CEDAW noted that state reports should demonstrate that health legislation and policies are based on: ‘scientific and ethical research and assessment of the health status and needs of women in that country and take into account any ethnic, regional or community variations or practices based on religion, tradition or culture’. Reports should also address diseases and health hazards that: ‘affect women or certain groups of women differently to men’. Special measures General Recommendation no. 25 includes the recognition that women may suffer, in addition to gender discrimination: ‘from multiple forms of discrimination based on additional grounds such as race, ethnic or religious identity, disability, age, class, caste or other factors’ that may affect them in different ways to men. It suggests that states may need to take temporary special measures to eliminate this multiple discrimination. It stresses that specific measures taken on a temporary basis to bring about equality do not constitute discrimination, and recommends that states clearly differentiate between temporary special measures and general social policies designed to improve the situation of women. MINORITY RIGHTS: A GUIDE TO UNITED NATIONS PROCEDURES AND INSTITUTIONS General Comments of the Committee on the Rights of the Child Education General Comment no. 1 on the aims of education acknowledges that, at first sight, some of the ideas in Article 29 of the CRC may appear contradictory: ‘efforts to promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all peoples, to which paragraph (1) (d) refers, might not always be automatically compatible with policies designed, in accordance with paragraph (1) (c), to develop respect for the child’s own cultural identity, language and values’. It stresses that the importance of the provision is the need for a balanced approach that reconciles diverse values through dialogue and respect, and highlights the important role children can play in bridging differences between groups. The committee highlights that education is crucial in eliminating racism since racism thrives on ignorance and unfounded fears. Education should teach about historical occurrences of racism and current forms of racism, including focusing on the child’s own community in order to demonstrate that racism is not only practised by ‘others’. Adolescent health The CRC in General Comment no. 4 urged states to collect data to allow study of the specific health situation of adolescents, including the situation of specific groups such as ‘ethnic and/or indigenous minorities, migrant or refugee adolescents’. The committee called on states to implement legislation and policies to promote the health and development of adolescents, including: ‘giving, while respecting the values and norms of ethnic and other minorities, special attention, guidance and support to adolescents and parents (or legal guardians), whose traditions and norms may differ from the society where they live’. 3.4 Complaints mechanisms Five treaties include provisions for individuals to bring allegations of violations of the treaty to the attention of the monitoring committee. These are known as communications. Individuals, or NGOs acting on their behalf, can only bring a complaint if the state has specifically accepted the jurisdiction of the committee to consider individual complaints. In the case of the CEDAW and ICCPR, the state must have ratified the appropriate Optional Protocol, and in the case of the CAT, CERD and MWC, the state must have made the required Declaration. 21