Implement international norms in national practice 103. Governments are encouraged to take steps to give effect in national laws, administrative regulations and public policies to the provisions of international conventions, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other international instruments such as the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and United Nations principles for elderly persons. Action should be taken to enact laws that establish women’s rights to autonomy, particularly in the area of family law and property rights. National machinery for the advancement of women and national human rights institutions should monitor the process and provide input to it. Non-governmental organizations should support this process. Special measures should be taken to safeguard, promote and protect the full enjoyment of all human rights and freedoms by non-citizen women (i.e., women migrant workers, other migrant women, refugee and displaced women, temporary workers), women with disabilities, women in situations of internal and international armed conflict, and indigenous women. Special measures should be taken to improve the equal enjoyment by rural women of their human rights. Achieve legal literacy 104. Governments and non-governmental organizations should take steps to improve awareness about the human rights of women and to create an environment in which women can exercise those rights. These steps should include campaigns to inform women about their rights under international instruments and national laws and to provide training in the functioning of the legal system. Human rights education with a gender perspective should be included in the curriculum. Measures should be taken to make public administration in general, at both the national and the local level, aware of women’s human rights and to improve women’s access to justice through providing legal assistance, streamlining procedures and orienting judicial personnel, police and other public officials, especially at the community level, about women’s human rights. J. Enhance the role of traditional and modern communications media to promote awareness of equality between women and men effectively 105. Actions to encourage the communications media to promote awareness depend on the approach taken in each country. The media should be accountable for presenting a positive image of women. In some countries, actions would emphasize encouragement by non-governmental organizations of the media to promote equality. In other countries where communications media are public, action would emphasize the use of guidelines. When the media are controlled by the Government, Governments should encourage the media to provide a positive portrayal of women. National actions should be accompanied by support of the United Nations system to study the impact of communications on the promotion of equality. Guarantee the access of women to information and participation in the media 106. Governments should take steps to guarantee the rights of all people to communicate, disseminate and exchange information and to ensure the access by women to information and to the media on an equal basis. Governments should support non-governmental organizations developing information material based on national experience. Measures should be taken to guarantee more balanced participation of women in government-owned media at the decision-making level. -51-