are severely discriminated against unless they are wounded soldiers who say their wounds were the result of U.S. aggression during the Korean War. Right to food A January 2004 report by Amnesty International noted that "North Korea remains dependent on food aid to feed its people, yet government policy still prevents the swift and equitable distribution of this aid, while the population is denied the right to freedom of movement, which would enable people to go and search for food." The report found that the North Korean government had "failed in its duty to uphold and protect" the right to food and that the regime's actions "have exacerbated the effects of the famine and food crisis". Shortly thereafter, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea published Hunger and Human Rights: The Politics of Famine in North Korea (by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, 2005), which discussed the probability that North Korean food shortages in the 1990s were a man-made (regime) phenomenon and that with plausible policy adjustments – such as maintaining food imports on commercial terms or aggressively seeking multilateral assistance – the North Korean government could have avoided famine and food shortages. Instead, in a desperate attempt to conserve resources for the Korean government, the regime blocked humanitarian aid and diverted resources to the military. In 2016, British scholar Hazel Smith reported that health and nutrition of the population had improved greatly and was comparable to other developing countries. She disputed the view that government policies were creating a human rights crisis that was unique to North Korea. Discrimination and unequal access to food Economic reform abolished the old coupon system in North Korea, which had favored non-productive citizens regarding access to food. After the coupon system disappeared, an average urban family spent between 75 and 85 percent of their income on food, while state farmers were spending only a third of their income on food. These disparities show that North Korea does not have safety net mechanisms to protect the vulnerable people in society, such as housewives and the elderly. When the food crisis began, access to food came through a public distribution system (PDS) controlled by the regime, and entitlements were partly a function of political status. As the planned economy crumbled and markets developed in response to the state's inability to fulfill its obligations under the old social compact, the character of the crisis changed.