Especially upon collecting human eggs, the right to life and women’s rights to health should be guaranteed by relevant legislation which needs to be established and strictly observed. 12. The understanding that the government should guarantee and fulfill individuals’ economic, social and cultural rights needs to be strengthened. For the past four years, governmental policies to guarantee social rights have improved. However, considering a wider gap between the rich and the poor, increasing job insecurity, and unemployment, individuals’ social rights need to be more protected. 13. Non-regular workers are seriously suffering from discrimination in employment and do not enjoy labor rights. In particular, they suffer from job insecurity and low income, and discrimination against non-regular workers are especially compounded by discrimination against women. Thus the feminization of poverty is a serious concern. In July 2007, the Act on Protection for Non-regular Workers became effective. However, there are few positive outlooks among laborers and academics on whether or not the Act will achieve its aims of job security and counter-discrimination. When the law became effective, some employers started to fire non-regular workers or deny renewal of their employment contracts to avoid the possibility of making non-regular workers regular ones under the law. This brought about even more insecurity in the employment market. 14. Combined with the lack of a social safety net and the weakness of the current social welfare system, economic divide and expansion of the poor are becoming more serious, which contributed to the tendency of poverty passing on from generation to generation. The government should provide measures to guarantee the right to health by strengthening the social welfare system, guaranteeing rights to shelter, and expanding medical assistance for the poor so that all individuals in the country can enjoy adequate standards of living. 15. For the past four years, middle school education has become compulsory in addition to elementary school education, but parents still need to pay for some portion of the education. Thus primary education is not entirely free. In that sense, measures should be taken to guarantee the right to education for students from low-income families. Also for children outside of the regular education system to get alternative or vocational education, various opportunities should be provided. 16. Currently, the public health insurance program is being provided to all individuals, and the range of coverage is improving. However, the portion that individuals pay needs to be reduced and insurance coverage requires to be further widened, partly because economic burdens on patients with incurable diseases and long-term care needs are ever increasing.