18 INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMED CONFLICT of Covenant rights insofar as they are amenable to application between private persons or entities.”15 In international humanitarian law too, States must protect prisoners, e.g., from public curiosity, maintain law and order in occupied territories, and protect women from rape. Under the obligation to take precautions against the effects of attacks by the enemy, they must even take measures, to the maximum extent feasible, to protect their own civilian population, e.g., by endeavouring to keep military objectives and combatants away from densely populated areas. States also have an obligation to fulfil, for instance, by taking legislative, administrative, budgetary, judicial and other steps towards the full realization of human rights. This obligation may be realized incrementally or progressively in relation to economic, social and cultural rights,16 and includes the duties to facilitate (increase access to resources and means of attaining rights), provide (ensure that the whole population may realize its rights if it is unable to do so on its own) and promote that right. For example, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has indicated that the obligation to fulfil the right to work includes the implementation by States parties of plans to counter unemployment, to take positive measures to enable and assist individuals to enjoy the right to work, to implement technical and vocational education plans to facilitate access to employment, and to undertake, for example, educational and informational programmes to instil public awareness of the right to work.17   General comment No. 31 (2004), para. 8.   The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in general comment No. 3 (1990) on the nature of States parties obligations, has indicated that “while the full realization of the relevant rights may be achieved progressively, steps towards that goal must be taken within a reasonably short time after the Covenant’s entry into force for the States concerned. Such steps should be deliberate, concrete and targeted as clearly as possible towards meeting the obligations recognized in the Covenant” (para. 2). Moreover, the Committee indicated that the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights “differs significantly from that contained in article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which embodies an immediate obligation to respect and ensure all of the relevant rights. Nevertheless, the fact that realization over time, or in other words progressively, is foreseen under the [International] Covenant [on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights] should not be misinterpreted as depriving the obligation of all meaningful content” (para. 9). 17   General comment No. 18 (2005) on the right to work, paras. 26–28. 15 16