A/HRC/30/41/Add.1 widespread poverty and extreme poverty; and barriers to their enjoyment of their economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. A. Lands, territories and natural resources 17. Article 64 of the Paraguayan Constitution recognizes the right of indigenous communities to communal ownership of their lands, which are indivisible and non transferable, not subject to seizure or income tax and may not be leased or used as security for contractual obligations. That article also stipulates that indigenous peoples may not be displaced without their consent. Nevertheless, in Paraguay there is a general lack of respect and protection for those rights; this has led to violent conflicts that have in turn given rise to human rights abuses. Existing barriers to the enjoyment of those rights have been described in the decisions of the Inter -American Court of Human Rights in the Yakyé Axa, Sawhoyamaxa and Xakmók Kasék cases. 6 18. According to the results of the 2012 census, 375 indigenous communities had put forward land claims, although 3.9 per cent of those communities lacked legal title, while another 134 communities stated that they are landless; 145 communities reported that they were experiencing land-related problems, such as the wrongful appropriation of land by business enterprises, occupation of land by small -scale farmers, wrongful appropriation of land by public agencies, the e xistence of overlapping land titles and the rental or loan of land to third parties. 19. Indigenous peoples’ access to land (referred to in the law as “settlements of indigenous peoples”) is regulated in the Indigenous Communities Statute, which states that the land area to be awarded to indigenous communities shall be determined based on the number of inhabitants and the amount of land necessary to ensure the cultural and economic viability of the community and its future growth, with a minimum of 20 hectares per family in the Eastern Region and 100 hectares per family in the Chaco. The law sets out the procedures for the submission of land claims and the award of title to communal lands. 20. Given the general situation in the country, the law appears to fa ll short of what is needed to ensure implementation of the constitutional and international standards relating to the rights of indigenous peoples. The legal framework suffers from conceptual shortcomings, as it characterizes land as no more than a product ive resource without taking into account traditional land uses and the cultural and spiritual values that indigenous peoples associate with the land. According to information provided to the Special Rapporteur, the procedure for securing land titles is bureaucratic, difficult to follow and slow. The privatization of large amounts of land and the lack of a proper land registry have given rise to the existence of overlapping ownership deeds that serve as a basis for multiple claims to the same parcels. Conflicting claims are often settled in favour of business enterprises, thus depriving indigenous peoples of their lands. According to official sources, the expropriation process that should be followed in the case of indigenous land awards is often unworkable because of high land prices, and this situation often redounds to the benefit of private landowners. As a result, the issuance of land titles is frequently limited to non-contiguous parcels that are then broken up into lots which are often too small to be of practical use. __________________ 6 6/24 Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Yakye Axa indigenous community v. Paraguay, decision of 17 June 2005, series C, No. 125; Sawhoyamaxo indigenous community v. Paraguay, decision of 29 March 2006, series C, No. 146; Xakmok Kasek indigenous community v. Paraguay, decision of 24 August 2010, series C, No. 214. GE.15-13734