106. Similarly, a World Bank study conducted in 2001 noted the lack of infrastructure and governmental negligence with respect to the region of La Mosquitia. It identified the urgent need to achieve rural development and relieve poverty by strengthening the local economy, creating new sources of employment, and reducing the population’s dependence on lobster and turtle fisheries. The Bank considered that the development of alternative sources of employment would contribute to a reduction in diving accidents, since the Miskitos would not be forced to dive continuously to obtain income for their subsistence. 148 107. In this regard, the Court notes that the victims were immersed in patterns of structural and intersectional discrimination, given that they belonged to an indigenous community and lived in poverty. One victim was a child; the other victims acquired disabilities and did not receive medical treatment, and had no other economic alternative but to accept a dangerous job that put their health, their personal integrity and their lives at risk. The confluence of these factors enabled the hazardous activity of underwater fishing, which involves enormous risks (supra para. 31 to 38), to be carried out in the Mosquitia region without effective implementation of the regulations, and forced the victims to work in unhealthy conditions, without the protection of social security. It is also important to emphasize that the fact that the victims belonged to a particularly vulnerable group accentuated the State’s duty to respect and guarantee their rights. However, the State did not adopt measures to ensure that the victims could exercise their rights without discrimination, and the intersection of comparative disadvantages aggravated their experience of victimization. 108. At the same time, the Court recalls that an obligation to ensure material equality is derived from Article 24 of the Convention, which did not happen in the instant case. The right to equality guaranteed under Article 24 of the Convention has two dimensions. The first is a formal dimension that establishes equality before the law; the second is a material or substantive dimension that requires the adoption and promotion of positive measures in favor of groups that have historically suffered discrimination or marginalization due to the factors mentioned in Article 1(1) of the American Convention. This means that the right to equality entails the obligation to adopt measures to ensure that this equality is real and effective; in other words, to correct existing inequalities, promote the inclusion and participation of historically marginalized groups, and to guarantee to disadvantaged individuals or groups the effective enjoyment of their rights. In short, to provide individuals with the real possibility of achieving material equality. To this end, States must actively combat situations of exclusion and marginalization. 149 109. In this specific case, the Court finds that the State did not adopt any measure that could be assessed by the Court as an effective way of addressing or seeking to reverse the situation of structural poverty and marginalization of the victims, taking into account the factors of discrimination that converged in this case. Furthermore, the State was aware of the victims’ special situation of vulnerability since, as the State itself acknowledged, in August 2002 the Ministry of Labor, Interior and Justice met with the organization Handicap International and AMHBLI to agree on commitments regarding a solution “to the problem of the disabled divers in La Mosquitia.” 150 Also, according to reports from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program, in 2003, the department of Gracias a Dios had high 148 World Bank. The Lobster Fishery of the Honduran and Nicaraguan Moskitia. A study of the resource, its sustainable exploitation and the problems of the Miskito divers working in the fishery. September 1999. Cf. Case of the Workers of the Fireworks Factory in Santo Antônio de Jesus v. Brazil, supra, para. 199, and Advisory Opinion OC-27/21, supra, para. 157. 149 150 Cf. Minutes of meeting 13-08-02 (evidence file, folio 3735). 37