A/HRC/14/31 nationally or internationally is often a risk for older persons. Often, financial support provided by children becomes irregular and insecure, even though they may still be asked to care for grandchildren. 23. Migrants can also be at risk of losing income in their old age. While persons who have migrated to work in their adulthood may have contributed to pension systems where they worked, when they retire and return to their countries of origin they are unable to reap the benefits of their prior contributions. E. Old-age poverty and HIV/AIDS 24. The HIV/AIDS epidemic impacts on older persons in two ways. First, mostly middle-aged people die from the disease and older persons are more likely to be left without the care and support of their children. Second, they also may become the primary caregivers to their orphaned grandchildren. 25. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 26 million of the 40 million persons living with HIV/AIDS worldwide and is subsequently the region with the highest number of households with a generation gap. In Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, 60 per cent of AIDS orphans live with their grandparents.16 III. Social protection and old age 26. As detailed in the expert’s previous reports,17 social protection is defined as encompassing a wide range of policies designed to address the risks and vulnerabilities of individuals and groups, irrespective of whether they can or cannot work. It seeks to help them cope with, and overcome, situations of poverty, especially when they result from circumstances outside of their control. Social protection systems are generally structured around three important objectives for poverty elimination: (i) facilitating recovery from crises that have led people to become poor; (ii) contributing to the ability of chronically poor people to emerge from poverty; and (iii) supporting the less active poor (such as the elderly, persons with disabilities and children) so that their poverty will not be inherited by the next generation. Governmental entities are the main providers of social protection, but often civil society entities and the private sector also contribute. 27. Social protection systems can help realize a full range of rights. International human rights instruments generally do not use the term “social protection”.18 Instead they establish the right of everyone to “social security, including social insurance”. Beyond ensuring the right to social security, States’ duty to implement social protection systems also flows from the right to an adequate standard of living and a number of related economic and social rights enshrined in several legally binding human rights treaties. 28. Social protection can be divided in two main segments: social insurance and social assistance. Social insurance refers to all contributory insurance schemes providing prespecified support for affiliated members in the event of contingencies such as injury, sickness, disability and old age. Social assistance encompasses all initiatives providing both cash and in-kind assistance to those living in poverty; these are often financed by general taxation revenues or external aid. Social pensions consist of cash benefits received by 16 17 18 GE.10-12583 Ibid., p. 24. See A/HRC/11/9 and A/64/279. An exception is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which sets out a right to social protection (art. 28). 7