New Zealand's National Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Report ...

• Child poverty, including challenging discrimination against children whose parentsare beneficiaries• Asylum seekers access to services including accredited interpreters and ending thepractice of imprisonment with convicted criminals• Improved enforcement of labour standards for health and safety• Establishing human rights standards for child labour• Ending child abuse• Elderly abuse and protection in institutional care• Domestic violence, including violence against people with experience of mentalillness• Lack of migrant women in leadership roles• Lack of culturally appropriate foster homes for the children of ethnic minorities• New Zealand’s position on the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples• Institutional racism and poverty• The Treaty of Waitangi formally incorporated into New Zealand’s constitutionalarrangements• Involuntary hospitalisation of mental health patients for excessive periods of timeand inadequate funding levels for community care• Rights of immigrants• Combating covert discrimination in employment recruitment• Improving the position of sexual minorities• Affirmative action for minorities• High imprisonment rates, especially for Maori, and lack of rehabilitation services• Exclusion of children from school and discrimination concerning disabled children’saccess to education services.• Improving the rights of children in the Family Court and in the Youth Justice system• Discrimination against migrants• Rural issues e.g. equal access to health services.• Cultural “rights” and practices versus human rights e.g. dowries and polygamyParticipants agreed that New Zealand’s human rights situation has improved in a numberof areas including:• Disabled persons rights including New Zealand Sign Language becoming an officiallanguage and New Zealand signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons withDisabilities);• The treatment of asylum seekers• Establishing minimum workplace health and safety standards• Establishing the Positive Ageing Strategy and monitoring results• The HRC Inquiry into Discrimination Experienced by Transgender People• Some progress in implementing the mental health blue print• Employers are more aware of human rights issues• Positive shift in some societal attitudes e.g. the Like Minds Like Mine campaign• Prostitution Law Reform Act; and Civil Union Act.It was noted that there was a need to access non-government progress to get a betterpicture on New Zealand’s human rights situationA number of priority actions were also identified including:• the differentiation in opportunities for children from different backgrounds• interpreting body for languages5