A/HRC/16/45 erupted. Societies in which mechanisms are in place allowing minorities freely to use their language, practice their culture and religion, and participate in political and economic life on an equal footing with the rest of the population are less likely to be societies in which tensions deteriorate into violent conflict. 27. Equally, in those States that implement protection for minority rights, minorities are more likely to be recognized as equal rights-holders and afforded the full protection of the State from aggression and violence directed against them. 28. Minorities are often the targets, rather than the perpetrators, of violence. When minority rights are violated, members of minorities may be at a greater risk of being subjected to systematic violence, even when they are bystanders to a conflict involving other parties. Such incidents can happen as a result of minorities’ poverty and exclusion from political decision-making processes, or because their often remote communities, poorly served by State infrastructure, can become targets for occupation for strategic purposes or for exploitation of natural resources. Furthermore, owing to the suspicion and prejudice with which they are often viewed by both members of the majority and security forces, minorities may be targeted with impunity. 29. Additionally, women and men members of minorities may be targeted by armed actors in different ways, increasing the forms of violence in the society in general. For example, women are targeted by sexual violence, while men are forcibly recruited into militias. The rape of women, for example, may be intended to humiliate men and demonstrate their inability to protect “their” women. 30. The views of the independent expert have been developed through visits to countries in almost every region of the world, thematic reports and policy debates that she has facilitated at the Forum on Minority Issues. She has consulted widely with Governments, experts and non-governmental organizations. She has participated in seminars and forums in the field of early warning and conflict prevention. In addition, she has held consultations with numerous key actors, including the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, including discussions relating to, inter alia, how efforts could be coordinated to identify potential threats to the existence of minorities and how to better coordinate conflict prevention work. A. The link between minority rights violations and violent conflict 31. The protection of minority rights and the prevention of violent conflicts are legitimate goals of independent value to be pursued by the international community. Both goals lie at the heart of the mandate of the United Nations, and States should pursue each one as a valid objective in its own right. However, the fact that these two concerns are so often linked to one another makes it appropriate to consider them together. 32. Since the adoption of the 1992 Declaration on Minorities, the basic assumption contained in its preamble — that the implementation of minority rights contributes to the stability of States — has been taken up and developed further in successive resolutions of the General Assembly, the Commission on Human Rights, its successor the Human Rights Council, reports of the Secretary-General and outcome documents of a number of conferences and policy processes. 33. In his landmark report to the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations in 2000, the Secretary-General stated that in many countries at war, the condition of poverty was coupled with sharp ethnic or religious cleavages, and that almost invariably, the rights of subordinate groups were insufficiently respected, the institutions of Government were insufficiently inclusive and the allocation of society’s resources favoured the dominant faction over others. He added that the solution was clear: to promote human rights, to 9