2006/05/02

Oral intervention by Areli Sandoval Terán on behalf the Promoting Group of the ESCER

Social Watch

See the document prepared by Areli Sandoval Terán for her oral intervention before the ESCR Committee in Geneva last May 1, 2006.

See Word file.

Oral intervention by Areli Sandoval Terán on behalf the Promoting Group of the Alternative Report on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights

(Monday, 1st of May 2006, Room XXIV, Palais des Nations, Geneva )

Good afternoon Mrs. President, distinguished members of the Committee on ESCR:

My organization, Equipo Pueblo, is member of a NGO coalition working on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (ESCER) -called “Espacio DESC”- and the focal point in Mexico for the Social Watch International Network. My intervention is on behalf of the group of civil society organizations that prepared together the Alternative or Parallel Report to the IV Periodic Report of the Mexican State on the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The Alternative Report was submitted to the Committee on ESCR by 105 civil society organizations: it was elaborated by 49 Mexican civil and social organizations and networks, and other 56 –including some regional and international- are adhering organizations.

The objective of my intervention is to present a general overview of our main causes of concern, some conclusions and recommendations. The Reports includes a summary of the diagnosis of the situation of all the rights considered in the Covenant, the analysis of the economic and social policies, the public budget, the situation in Chiapas, the human rights of migrants, the National Human Rights Program, critical comments on some governmental measures adopted during the period of report, and our proposals and recommendations on the various issues.

We would like to point out that in terms of what the government reports as civil society consultation, we were asked for comments of the draft version of the IV Periodic Report in a very short period of time, so we just sent a letter to the Foreign Affairs Ministry expressing general concerns on the information, and we do not considered have been properly taken into account.

We consider that the IV Periodic Report of Mexico does not provide the Committee with all of the information on obstacles and setbacks.  We do not share the government’s appraisal on the fulfilment of the Committee’s previous recommendations. It is concerning that in spite of the time that has passed; the Mexican State has not satisfactorily attended to all of them (Document E/C.12.1/Add.41 after the examination of the Third Periodic Report in 1999, and document E/C.12/1993/16 after the examination of the Second Periodic Report in 1993)

Principal causes for concern

Mexico , a middle-income country situated in the most unequal region in the world, competes with other Latin American countries for the first places on economic, social and gender inequality.[i] In the 2005 Progress Report of the Mexican government on the Millennium Development Goals it is recognised that “it is enough to simply disaggregate the follow-up information on the MDGs by geography, gender or ethnic groups to obtain not only different levels of progress, but very distant results. Hence, many of the achievements obtained are not yet equitable for all of the population, which shows that inequality and delays persist.”[ii]  

The federal elections of 2000 ended 71 years of government by the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), undoubtedly a fundamental step in our country’s transition to democracy.  Nevertheless, we call the Committee’s attention to the fact that the political opening, without the revision or in-depth debates on the model of economic and social development being applied in our country for over twenty years, is not enough to achieve an improvement of the population’s living conditions and to guarantee the realisation of human rights.

Economic Policy issues

[Economic context and general governmental measures which create obstacles or affect the fulfilment of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights]

As it was also recognised in the Diagnosis on the Human Rights Situation in Mexico, elaborated by the representation of the OHCHR in Mexico in 2003, twenty years of dismantling the State, privatising public companies, opening the market, inflation control, disloyal competition for national producers, the elimination of subsidies, salary contention and the deregulation of markets, have had serious repercussions on the standards of living and on the ESCER of persons and their families.  The Mexican State has operated with a double standard: liberation and total and unrestricted support for foreign investment and the large Mexican business groups, and contention and restrictions on the exercise of their freedoms and respect for their human rights for millions of wage workers and small to medium size producers. [iii] As we show in the Alternative Report sections on the rights to food, to health, to social security and to education, subsidies has been reduced or eliminated, the health and social protection system has been fragmentized, public resources has been reduced.

The implementation of the economic model of trade and investments liberalization [started since 1985 and continued till now] has not been socially and environmentally responsible. For instance, the massive imports of grains and oleaginous over passing the NAFTA’s quota accentuates the impoverishment of the majority of the residents and agriculture workers of the countryside. We are also concerned about violations to the right to self determination in its internal dimension due to the lack of State’s regulation   over the private sector (national and transnational corporations) which contaminate or abuse of the natural resources, and do not carry out adequate consultations with the communities that are going to be affected by their actions.  In the Committee’s previous recommendations (1993 and 1999) it was highlighted the need  of special measures taken by the State to avoid, prevent or alleviate any negative effects that the NAFTA might have on the ESCR of the population. However, the Mexican government has not been capable to implement the recommendations in spite of many concrete proposals that has received from agricultural workers and social sectors in Mexico (for example:  renegotiation of the NAFTA’s chapter on agriculture, more and better policies to support national agriculture, etcetera)

Among the main proposals and recommendations that we make are the following: promote efficient national chains of production (the small and medium sized enterprises or SMEs represent approximately 98% of the total enterprises); make private sector accountable for any of its actions affectin human rights, according to the State’s obligation of protect human rights from non state actors’ actions; open a public discussion on economic matters and promote civil society organizations’ participation in the definition of economic policies; to take measures for redistribution of resources, reorientation of priorities [for example: to carry out a health and social security system “rescue”, as it was done with the private bank system (FOBAPROA)…]

Social Policy issues

[Social context and critical approach to social policy and programs which are deficient and without human rights perspective]

The Human Development Report for Mexico 2004, elaborated by the UNDP, explains that the national inequality in the levels of the Human Development Index ( HDI ) is due to differences between as well as within the states. Those that present the lowest HDI are: Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Zacatecas, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Tabasco and San Luis Potosí, areas with a high concentration of a peasant and/or indigenous population, who also expel labour to the United States; men, women and children- internal or external migrants- who suffer discrimination and other human rights violations.

The situation of poverty in Mexico continues being really serious, and the governmental measures are insufficient and inadequate. While the IV Periodic Report highlights the anti-poverty Program “Oportunidades”, many studies and external evaluations has demonstrated that the that focalised programmes have serious errors in including beneficiaries and adverse effects on social relations (divisions and the disintegration of social networks)

With respect to social development programmes, focalisation strategies on extreme poverty are privileged instead of universal care strategies that, given the high levels of poverty in the country, should be applied in a complementary manner. This has implied the continuity of a policy consisting of channelling resources for survival and of an assistentialist nature, which are defined by numeric factors, instead of establishing broader policies based on social rights.

According to the measurements of the Technical Committee to Measure Poverty established by the Ministry for Social Development (SEDESOL) in 2000 the 45.9% of households representing 53.7% of the total population (52, 375, 500 people) lived in the alarming situation of patrimony poverty, which means that are households classified with having insufficient incomes to cover needs of food, health, clothing, shoes, housing and public transportation, that is households that receive 28.1 per person in rural areas and 41.8 pesos in urban areas (at 2000 prices). This kind of poverty was concentrated in 50.42% in the rural areas and 49.58% in the urban areas. By 2004, the concentration patrimony poverty in rural areas diminished to 45.40% and the urban concentration increased to 54.60%.   The ESCR Committee should ask an explanation by the Mexican government.

Also, other programmes have been promoted, for example on micro credit that aims for people in situations of poverty to initiate or develop a personal or family business with the objective of self employment. However, these projects are rarely technically viable due to a lack of training and are unsustainable in the long-term. Also, projects that plan for immediate impacts are privileged, leaving aside projects that propose community strengthening processes. A micro credit policy with this orientation tends to foster the informal economy in the long-term and widen the technology gap with international corporations that are active in the country. 

In spite of numerous social programmes of the Contigo (“With You”) Strategy described by the government, as long as the political will does not exist to revise and redirect economic and social policies with a focus based on human rights, and to redesign them with coherence objectives to avoid contradictory policy effects and including social participation, poverty, inequality and exclusion will continue to represent systematic denials of ESCER for more than half of the Mexican population, which lives in these conditions.

Public Budget

The IV Periodic Report of the Mexican State to the ESCR Committee mentions that the budget for social expenditure has grown; although it is true fore some social programs, we call the Committee to does not consider this increase globally because it will conduce to incorrect conclusions. The budget for social spending should be analyzed by sector. In this way, the Committee will be able to identify the problems that demonstrate that the State is not accomplishing the obligation under article 2 of the ICESCR which calls for each State to takes steps to the maximum of its available resources with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognised in the Covenant:

a) decrease of resources in some social key areas;

b) suspension or lack of progressive growing;

c) under-spending of resources approved to social expenditure and over-spending of resources out of social expenditure;

d) more resources oriented to “bank rescue” and foreign debt payments that to social issues.

For example: the government has increasingly designated fewer resources for education, for example between 2002-2005, bilingual education and multicultural education suffered drastic cuts. In health there many things to do to address the needs on infrastructure, equipment and medicines, the resources has diminished or stop growing in some health and social protection system that provokes the deterioration of the public services, favouring the idea of the supposed “need” of its privatization.  Likewise, the under-spending of the budget approved for social issues is constant, with the Opportunities Programme standing out, which, during the period 2001-2004, did not spend close to 2 billion pesos.  In contrast, the Ministries of Finance and Public Credit, National Defence, Foreign Relations and the Interior have over-spent their resources.  Therefore, the constant reference by the government to the scarcity of resources, and its incompletion of the obligation to take steps to the maximum of its available resources in favour of the rights of the ICESCR, is not justified in a context of poverty. The Committee should ask the government: which are the reasons for this under-spending in social areas, where are these resources, what steps have been taken to avoid this situation? [See more data in the following Alternative Report pages:  18, 19, 28, 125, 141, 142 y 144]

General conclusions and recommendations

Beside the ones already mentioned, it is necessary to guarantee access to disaggregated budgetary information to allow a better and easier social scrutiny.

It is fundamental to adequate the economic and social policies to the principles, obligations and human rights standards. 

It is highly important to strengthen and adapt  the national legal framework according to the Human Rights International Law, to recognize  the right to food and the right to water in the Constitution (initiatives already exist on both issues); to review or stop regressive legal reforms (for example: Housing Law, National Waters Law, Federal Labour Law)

Finally, it is necessary to design better procedural mechanisms for the defense of economic, social and cultural rights via legal routes, and to solve the problems that creates obstacles for the access to justice identified in the Alternative Report.

Notes:

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