E/C.12/1/Add.80 page 4 27. The Committee is concerned about the large number of people living below the poverty line, especially women heading single parent households, who receive insufficient protection from the State party in the enjoyment of their economic, social and cultural rights. 28. The Committee is deeply concerned about the lack of housing programmes to provide the poorest members of society with appropriate accommodation. The Committee is also concerned at the number of urban squatter communities which are exposed to forced evictions, in the light of the highly restrictive legal conditions governing their right to tenure. 29. While the Committee welcomes the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, it is concerned at the continued resort to corporal punishment at home and for adult males in the justice system. 30. The Committee is also concerned at the high rates of domestic and sexual violence, the excessive use of force by the police and the persistence of a generalized “culture of violence” in Trinidad and Tobago. 31. The Committee is concerned that problems of persisting overcrowding in hospitals, lack of staff and non-accessibility of basic drugs have put great strain on the public health service, which has detrimental effects on access to basic health-care facilities, goods and services, especially for the disadvantaged and marginalized groups of society. E. Suggestions and recommendations 32. The Committee urges the State party to ensure that economic, social and cultural rights are incorporated in national domestic legislation and made justiciable. The Committee points out that, irrespective of the system through which international law is incorporated in the domestic legal order (monism or dualism), following ratification of an international instrument, the State party is under an obligation to comply with it and to give it full effect in the domestic legal order. In this respect, the Committee draws the attention of the State party to its General Comment No. 9 on the domestic application of the Covenant. 33. The Committee recommends that the State party formulate and implement a comprehensive national plan of action for the protection and promotion of human rights, as recommended in paragraph 71 of the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and include information on this matter in the next periodic report. 34. The Committee recommends that the State party provide the Ombudsman with powers to deal with all human rights issues, including economic, social and cultural rights. 35. The Committee recommends that the State party ratify the ILO Conventions relevant to economic, social and cultural rights and to withdraw its reservation to article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In addition, the Committee notes with interest the State party’s declaration that it will reconsider its position regarding the denunciation of human rights instruments.