Plan International - Girls' Rights Platform - Girls' rights are human rights: Positioning girls at the heart of the international agenda

In relation to its focus on times of political transition, the Working Group will look at countries that are presently going through processes of political transition, as well as countries with lessons learned from past political transitions, particularly since the entry into force of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1981. The Working Group is attentive to the fact that while political transitions provide a unique opportunity to improve respect for women's civil and political rights, including their participation in the political system, and women's status in the legal and social systems, there is also a danger of regression on women's human rights.

The Working Group will also incorporate into its review the fact that women participating in political change and public life are often exposed to violence. The Working Group takes note of reports that women defenders are more at risk than men of suffering from certain forms of violence and other violations, due to the perception that they are challenging accepted sociocultural norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity, sexual orientation, the family and the role and status of women in society.

The Working Group intends to examine measures taken by States in political transition to improve women's constitutional and political position and their status in society and protect them from all forms of violence. It recognizes the agency of women, including as conducted through international and regional institutions and networks, in influencing positive change at the national level. Recommendations will be made on improving legislation and the implementation of laws to empower women and to secure women's right to a full and equal political and public life.

In order to develop its research on this thematic priority, the Working Group sent letters to all States Members of the United Nations on 8 December 2011 seeking information on: constitutional and other legislative initiatives and reforms put in place to promote women's rights and gender equality; the framework of State institutions, machineries and mechanisms to implement actions in order to fight against all forms of discrimination and violence against women; women's political participation, on equal terms with men, in the transitional and post-transitional process at all levels of decision-making; and women's access to justice, including transitional justice mechanisms. The Working Group takes this opportunity to thank the 40 States that had responded to the call for information at the time of submission of the document.

The democratic deficit undermines women's substantive participation in political and public life. Patronage politics, corruption, and undemocratic local government reduce women's effectiveness in the political arena, as they prevent transparency and accountability in decision-making and in the distribution of resources. Gender discriminatory policies and regulations have been applied by autonomous local governments even when national or federal laws mandate gender equality. Empowering women's participation in political and public life from the community level up helps build a culture of accountability, as it broadens the constituency for democratic decision-making, and is crucial to the effective application of good governance at all levels.

Since the introduction of the Convention, the world's political landscape has gone through substantial changes. These have been marked, variously in different regions and States, by the dismantling of long-standing totalitarian regimes, democratization and the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism. This period has also witnessed armed conflicts both between and within States, the creation of refugee populations and international involvement in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Technological leaps in the field of information and communications, particularly the Internet, have created a new public and political space, with revolutionary impact on the development and the exercise of human rights, allowing new forms of political expression and mobilization, and facilitating political communication and organization for men and women globally.

In the judicial branch, women account for only 27 per cent of judges worldwide. There is wide divergence among States as regards the numbers of women in the judiciary, with some States in the Eastern European region having a majority of women judges. Even in countries that have a higher representation of women in the judiciary, the numbers of women decrease at higher levels. There are few women in the highest courts, including supreme courts, and rarely are the presidents women. In most religious courts women are excluded from holding office. There is, however, good practice in the Asia-Pacific region: in one country, women judges have been part of the religious courts since the institution was created in the 1950s, reaching a participation rate of 20 per cent in 2011; in another, female judges were appointed to the Sharia court pursuant to the removal of its reservation to article 7 (b) of the Convention.

The focus of the Working Group on political transition has been carried out through its communications, country visits and regional and global expert input. Experience in countries in transition has varied greatly. In the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe during the 1990s, as in some of the recent political transitions in the Middle East and North Africa, there was backsliding on key gains for gender equality and/or the numerical representation of women was reduced. In contrast, in some political transitions in various countries in many regions, the introduction of quotas facilitated a significant rise in representation of women, producing, for instance in sub-Saharan Africa, some of the highest percentages of women members of parliament. Good practice in these States included the active engagement with the international community in the peacebuilding process and an emphasis on democracy, human rights and women's rights as human rights.

Economic governance is generated not only de jure by political decision-making, but also de facto by the activities of economic and financial institutions, enterprises and corporations at international, transnational and national levels. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, regional development banks and the World Trade Organization (WTO) constrain national economic policies. In the year 2000, the top 200 companies surpassed the economies of 182 countries; they exercise significant power in determining policy. The private sector creates and defines jobs, produces growth, sets parameters of income distribution and affects the social and environmental conditions of the communities in which they function.

There are barriers to women's access to leadership and decision-making positions in these economic and financial institutions, which generate policies that determine the quality of life of women, men, children and communities. Furthermore, in the emerging area of corporate responsibility, the gendered harm to women resulting from transnational business and trade policies has been largely invisible. There is a need to address these issues and develop tools for gender responsiveness in economic leadership and corporate responsibility.

Democracy and human rights are mutually reinforcing. Women's rights are human rights and hence are an integral element of the democracy and human rights axis. The General Assembly, in its resolution 59/201 (para. 1), declared the "essential elements of democracy" to consist of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, inter alia, freedom of association and peaceful assembly and of expression and opinion; the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; to vote and to be a candidate in free elections by universal and equal suffrage; a pluralistic system of political parties and organizations; respect for the rule of law; the separation of powers; the independence of the judiciary; transparency and accountability in public administration; and free, independent and pluralistic media.

There is growing recognition of the Internet as a key means by which individuals can exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression (A/HRC/17/27, para. 20). Through initiatives on e-government and e-democracy and the innovative use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by civil society, there is also a rising awareness of the Internet's role in expanding the concept of citizenship online. The Working Group welcomes the work by the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and civil society organizations, and encourages them to continue such work so as to deepen the knowledge on gender differences in the use of the Internet and other ICTs.

For women to have the capacity to participate in political and public life on equal footing with men, including to build autonomous movements for their own empowerment, they must be able to exercise their rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, movement and association. It is imperative to recognize and secure these rights as individual rights for women's effective participation in political and public life, in the light of the complex tensions between collective rights and women's rights.

Research suggests that in general men have more economic security to weather an economic crisis, having higher paying jobs with benefits such as health care and pensions, unemployment insurance coverage, and owning more property. Furthermore, in many crisis countries, women are disparately made redundant by a reduction in public service jobs. In times of financial crisis, social security guarantees are often undermined by austerity measures. The reduction of budgets for care facilities, unemployment benefits, income maintenance and pensions all disparately impact women, who are usually responsible for unpaid care functions and who constitute a majority of the poor. The Bachelet Report and reports by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights emphasize the role of social protection in cushioning the impact of the economic crisis, particularly for women.

Alternatives to austerity have been applied successfully in some countries. Counter-cyclical approaches in general have helped reduce the depth and duration of the impact and leverage a more rapid recovery. The Swedish recovery programme focused on avoiding labour market exclusion, particularly for women, and maintaining paid parental leave and day-care subsidies, recognized as particularly beneficial to women workers. Iceland stands out as a pioneer in adopting policies to protect women in the recent crisis, mainstreaming gender in its recovery measures, and appointing a working group to evaluate the impact of the economic crisis from a gender perspective and ensure that gender equality principles are reflected in State-led initiatives to restore the economy.

The lessons learned from the economic crisis and the impact of macroeconomic policies on women's economic opportunities can and should inform the post-2015 agenda. Grounding development priorities in women's human rights is not only a legal and moral imperative, but can also enhance effectiveness and accountability. In accordance with the proposal of UN-Women that gender equality must both be mainstreamed into all development goals and also remain a stand-alone goal, the Working Group recommends that transformative structural change as regards unpaid care functions be duly taken into account in a stand-alone goal of gender equality.

The right mix of special measures, both temporary and permanent, is required to address reported stagnation in the rise in women's participation in public office. Partial and selective application of gender quotas and other temporary special measures must be replaced by a comprehensive system-wide approach, in permanent as well as ad hoc institutions of governance, peace, development and human rights, at the local, national and global levels. The emerging framework for global governance of information and communications technologies (ICTs) is particularly important, considering the crucial role that ICTs are playing in the political and public life of women.

Most countries only track enrolment and not completion rates, yet enrolment is an inherently flawed measure of girls' access to education. Attendance is a better measure, as girls' attendance may be cut short due to domestic responsibilities such as cooking, fetching water and firewood, and childcare; lack of adequate sanitation in schools to meet the needs of menstruating girls; early marriage or pregnancy; and gender-based violence and harassment, including in schools. In situations of economic contraction, as households cope with declining household income, girls are more vulnerable to being pulled out of school, with girls experiencing a 29 per cent decrease in primary school completion rates versus 22 per cent for boys.

Nevertheless, there is not full equality of results in any labour market. Discrimination in hiring, promotion, conditions and wages and dismissal exists in all countries. In many high- and middle-income countries, gender gaps in unemployment have worsened since the economic crisis. Furthermore, cultural and structural barriers close opportunities for women in the labour force. Maternity is a focus for discrimination for women in most countries. Women's hours of workforce participation are, generally, reduced by motherhood, while men's are increased by fatherhood.

Women make important contributions to business around the world as business owners and entrepreneurs, with 224 million women globally operating businesses. Women tend to be concentrated in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which account for a significant share of employment generation and economic growth potential, with full or partial female ownership representing 31-38 per cent of SMEs in emerging markets. Women informal traders contribute significantly to national gross domestic product, accounting for between 40 and 65 per cent of value added in trade in some African countries. Research shows that companies with female board membership and diversity outperform others in return on sales, invested capital and equity. Furthermore, during the financial crisis, companies with women in the leadership had a better record of financial and employment sustainability.

Nevertheless, there is a significant gender gap in top leadership in decision-making bodies in business, finance and trade, including in international institutions such as the IMF and the WTO. Out of the world's 2,000 top performing companies, just 29, or 1.5 per cent, had female chief executive officers in 2009. Women account for 4 per cent of chief executive officers in Fortune 500 companies and 4 per cent in information technology and telecommunications companies. In 2012, women had only 16.6 per cent of Fortune 500 Board seats, of which only 0.6 per cent were women of colour. Only 17 out of 177 governors of central banks were women in 2012 (less than 10 per cent). Women are also greatly underrepresented in the leadership of cooperatives and trade unions.

However, reports suggest that rates of women in senior management are slowly increasing globally, currently reaching 24 per cent. The economies of the Group of Seven are at the bottom of the list, with just 21 per cent of senior roles occupied by women, and with only 7 per cent in one of these countries. This compares to 28 per cent in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, 32 per cent in South East Asia and 40 per cent in the Baltic States, while in China, 51 per cent of senior management positions are currently held by women.

A number of countries have adopted temporary special measures specifically directed at accelerating de facto equality for women in corporate leadership, entrepreneurship and trade. Legislation with gender quotas for membership of corporate boards has been adopted in 13 countries. Most of the countries with quota requirements belong to the Western European and other States Group, but some are in Africa and Asia. The quota requirements, varying between a minimum of 1 and 40 per cent, apply to government companies and publicly listed companies. In some States, failing to fulfil quota requirements results in sanctions. Quotas have also been applied by local government to boards of directors of cooperatives. On the evidence, it seems that mandatory and not voluntary quotas are the most effective way to get women onto boards.

Preliminary good practices for promotion of women's entrepreneurship include the ILO Job Creation in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Recommendation 1998 (No. 189) and Women's Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Equality programme, the Canadian Business Women in International Trade programme and the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation special programme for women exporters. The International Trade Centre has encouraged States to devise gender-sensitive national export strategies. Two countries also focused on female entrepreneurs, in response to the economic crisis, cutting interest rates on loans to micro- and small enterprises targeted at women-headed households or introducing special credit lines for female artisans.

Procurement policies that target women can be a tool to advance women's businesses. In developing countries, governments are the largest buyer of goods and services, accounting for 15-20 per cent of gross domestic product, and yet spend only 1 per cent on sourcing from women-owned businesses. Some countries have begun to tackle the issue. One country from the Western European and other States Group set a mandatory goal of 5 per cent of federal contract spending on women-owned small businesses. An African country put in place Public Procurement and Disposal (Preference and Reservations) Regulations to ensure access to government contracts by enterprises owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities.

There is an emerging business and human rights agenda focusing on corporate responsibility for human rights violations. The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights establish three pillars of corporate responsibility: the duty of the State to protect against human rights abuses by private actors; corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the duty of both to provide remedies for rights violations. While the Principles acknowledge that guidance to business should take into account gender considerations, there is significant work to be done to elaborate upon this and address the gendered impact of corporate activities on women.

Corporate governance has produced a dramatic increase in resources and income inequalities, with harsh implications for women, given their concentration lower on the value chain and in poverty. Furthermore, the increased mobility of corporations and free trade agreements have resulted in the amassing of political power vis-à-vis host States and can contribute to a lack of accountability and insurmountable barriers for women to access justice. The move of production by transnational corporations to export processing zones, the reliance on home and sweatshop sectors, and land dispossession by extractives industries are a locus for corporate abuse and violation of human rights, and most of the victims are women.

Export processing zones are delineated industrial estates with special incentives set up to attract foreign business and trade. They are feminized work enclaves in which women make up the majority of workers, up to 100 per cent in some cases. Women workers face particularly harsh employment conditions. Normal labour laws are usually not applied. Whether de jure or de facto, there is a lack of union organization and, typically, women's wages are 20-50 per cent lower than men's. Furthermore, these zones are a health hazard for women, with overextended working hours, rights violations relating to pregnancy protection, maternity leave or childcare, and sexual harassment.

Sweatshop and home work sectors exploit cheap, informal labour, largely from female workers. Businesses subcontract more than 300 million home workers in developing countries, hired to work at home in textiles, electronics, packaging and processing, for a piece rate without labour rights protections. A cut of earnings is also taken by middlemen. Women make up 85-90 per cent of sweatshop workers. Employers often force them to take pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave. Thousands of women work in garment factories, with the constant threat of fatal sweatshop fires largely because of corporate cost-saving decisions.

Extractive industries, as well as, increasingly, biofuel, agribusiness and real estate projects, are land intensive, and land dispossession has disproportionately displaced women. Women, who make up 70-80 per cent of the world's small-scale farmers, lose their livelihood, often do not receive compensation paid to landowners, who are male, and are the last in line for formal employment in the industries. As primary carers, they are deprived of shelter and the ability to feed their families. The arrival of a transient, largely male workforce also increases prostitution, sexual violence and sexually transmitted disease. Mismanagement of extractive projects can also lead to severe violations of human rights that are manifested in unique ways for women, including murder, torture, rape and sexual violence at the hands of security forces brought in to impose order.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has, for instance, held States responsible for denying equal access for women to private health providers. One binational trade agreement, supported by the ILO, linked access to markets in importing countries with improved labour conditions for the largely female garment workers in the exporting country. There are examples of corporate initiatives to provide childcare, career development and training for female workers in overseas garment industries, or to prevent use of ultrasound equipment, which may be used to increase sex-selective abortion.

Furthermore, failure to provide access to housing, food and water has disproportionately burdened women as vulnerable members of communities, as childbearers and as primary carers. These issues have been gender-mainstreamed in reports by, for example, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context; the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; the Special Rapporteur on the right to food; the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation; and Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights.

Reproduction and care functions are the very basis of human life and society. These functions, whether paid or unpaid, are performed either solely or largely by women. The fact that these functions are performed by women creates a major barrier to women's equality of opportunity in the labour market or in business, finance and entrepreneurship. Women's maternity rights have been widely recognized in formal employment, but not extended to either other spheres of economic activity or care functions. There has been a systemic failure to properly integrate the biological function of reproduction and the gendered function of unpaid caring into macroeconomic policy in a holistic, effective and coherent way, to ensure that reproduction and caring go hand-in-hand with the overall economic empowerment of women. This policy failure in effect endorses a major structural barrier to the equality of economic opportunity for women.

The Working Group calls on States to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and all relevant international human rights treaties and ILO Conventions which guarantee women's economic and social rights. It calls upon them to implement the obligations therein, including by ratifying the Optional Protocols of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, by introducing the required constitutional and legislative guarantees, and by adopting a transformative agenda which will produce an outcome of de facto equality for women in their economic and social lives.

[The Working Group recommends that States:] Take measures to reduce and reconstruct informal work; to reduce informal work, States should increase job opportunities for women in formal employment, especially in the public sector, and with targeted programmes for women's training, professionalization reskilling and unemployment programmes. To reconstruct, they should redefine the scope of protective labour law, introduce pro rata pay and social security benefits for part-time or casual work, and extend paid maternity leave and care rights to workers in both the formal and informal sectors;

The legal rights of women and girls to equality and non-discrimination in cultural and family life, established in 1948 by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by international human rights law, are often restricted in national laws and in practice, including in cultural practice. The Working Group emphasizes that, in accordance with international human rights law, States have an obligation to adopt appropriate measures with a view to eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and girls in laws, cultural practices and the family, whether perpetrated by State agents or private actors.

Culture is a broad concept encompassing all forms of conduct, organization and human behaviour within society, including family, language, religion, philosophy, law, government, art and sport. Cultural diversity occurs when culture is expressed and develops in different contexts in society. Culture is not a static or unchanging concept, although some States tend to present it as such in order to justify inequality between men and women. This living, dynamic and evolving process permeates all human activities and institutions, including legal systems, in all societies across the world. Viewing culture and beliefs as immutable hinders the realization and development of all human rights, including those of women.

The present report aims to clarify the meaning of equality in the area of health and safety, identify discriminatory practices, expose the instrumentalization of women's bodies in violation of their human dignity and reveal the barriers to women's autonomous, effective and affordable access to health care. Instrumentalization is defined as the subjection of women's natural biological functions to a politicized patriarchal agenda, which aims at maintaining and perpetrating certain ideas of femininity versus masculinity or of women's subordinate role in society.

States are obliged to secure women's rights to the highest attainable standard of health and safety, including their underlying determinants, and women's equal access to health-care services, including those related to family planning, as well as their rights to privacy, information and bodily integrity. The obligation to respect, protect and fulfil women's right to equal access to health-care services and to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women with regard to their health and safety is violated by neglecting women's health needs, failing to make gender-sensitive health interventions, depriving women of autonomous decision-making capacity and criminalizing or denying them access to health services that only women require. In some situations, failure to protect women's rights to health and safety may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or torture, or even a violation of their right to life.

Substantive equality in the area of health and safety requires differential treatment. Throughout their life cycle from childhood to old age, women have health needs and vulnerabilities that are distinctively different from those of men. Women have specific biological functions, are exposed to health problems that affect only women, are victims of pervasive gender-based violence and, statistically speaking, live longer than men, resulting in their greater need to access health services frequently and into older age. Hence, women and girls experience the negative effects of insufficiencies in health-care services more intensively than men.

Women face a disproportionate risk of being subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment in health-care facilities, especially during pregnancy, childbirth and the post-partum period. Furthermore, they are especially vulnerable to degrading treatment in situations where they are deprived of liberty, including in migrant detention facilities or mental institutions. They are subjected to humiliating treatment within the health-care system because of their gender identity and sexual orientation, sometimes expressly in the name of morality or religion, as a way of punishing what is considered "immoral" behaviour.

Women's bodies are instrumentalized for cultural, political and economic purposes rooted in patriarchal traditions. Instrumentalization occurs within and beyond the health sector and is deeply embedded in multiple forms of social and political control over women. It aims at perpetuating taboos and stigmas concerning women's bodies and their traditional roles in society, especially in relation to their sexuality and to reproduction. As a result, women face continuous challenges in accessing health care and in maintaining autonomous control in decision-making about their own bodies. Understanding and eliminating the instrumentalization of women's bodies, which is based on harmful cultural norms and stereotypes, and its detrimental impact on women's health, is critical for change to occur.

The State is accountable for fulfilling its international human rights obligation to ensure that women are provided with gender-responsive scientific research, medicines and health interventions and for providing appropriate and adequate gender-based resources and a system of effective monitoring, budgeting, remedies and redress. It is also obligated to provide women with autonomous, effective and affordable access to health care. The State has a responsibility to ensure that barriers to women's enjoyment of the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health are dismantled, including by exercising due diligence.

Several United Nations human rights experts, special procedures mandate holders, treaty bodies and the Secretary-General of the United Nations have established that neither cultural diversity nor freedom of religion may justify discrimination against women. Discriminatory, repressive and violent practices against women should be eliminated, whatever their origins, including those founded in culture or religion. The Working Group is convinced that this opinion is crucial to securing women's enjoyment of their right to equality in all aspects of life.

In many contexts, States fail to establish and enforce a clear legal hierarchy based on the guarantees of equality and non-discrimination set forth in international human rights law and national legislation, thus helping to maintain patriarchal modes of organization and behaviours. Even when the law is independent of any religious source, it may be strongly influenced by culture, deriving from dominant ideologies linked to religion, traditional attitudes and social norms. Some States adopt national laws and regulations that restrict the rights, power and mobility of women on the basis of essentialist points of view belonging to a particular culture or religion. Conservative religious extremist movements impose strict modesty codes in order to subjugate women and girls in the name of religion, particularly in situations of political transition or conflict. For example, some branches of Islam have reintroduced forced and/or early marriage and some branches of Christianity prevent women from having access to therapeutic abortion. Religious extremism limits women's rights, including their right to health and economic activity, and they are generally subject to harsh sanctions for crimes committed against the patriarchy, such as adultery. At the international level, many States justify their reservations to articles of several human rights conventions, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, in the name of preserving their cultures and religions. Human Rights Council resolutions 16/3 on promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms through a better understanding of traditional values of humankind and 26/11 on the protection of the family threaten to undermine international achievements in the field of human rights in the name of cultural and religious diversity.

The Working Group is concerned about the considerable increase in laws and public policies developed to protect culture and religion that threaten the universally established standards on the rights of women. Gender-based stereotypes, often strengthened and legitimized in national constitutions, laws and policies, are justified in the name of cultural norms or religious beliefs. Failure to eliminate these stereotypes leads to the generalization of practices that are harmful to women and girls. The sexist stereotypes present in the media, on the Internet, in audiovisual productions and in video games contribute to the perpetuation of a culture of discrimination and violence against women.

Women who do not conform to the gender stereotypes that predominate in some cultures and those who openly contest them, including within their own cultural or religious communities, are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, violence and criminalization. They include, among others, single women, widows, female heads of family, lesbians, bisexual and transgender women, sex workers and women human rights defenders. The Working Group emphasizes that the obligation of States to protect cultural diversity applies to diversity within cultures as well as between them.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has recommended the prohibition and annulment of these marriages, which violate the dignity of women, and calls for safeguards and guarantees to protect the rights of women and girls living in such families. Invalidating an early marriage protects the minor spouses by restoring their single status so that they are deemed never to have been married, rather than divorced, and by cancelling all financial or property transactions linked to the marriage.

Health care is often unaffordable owing to discriminatory health insurance coverage. Some health insurance policies and programmes exclude various aspects of reproductive health care, including modern forms of contraception, termination of pregnancy and maternal care. Alternatively, some private health insurance schemes insure women's reproductive health needs but add a surcharge to the premiums paid by women. Good practice includes measures that discourage insurance companies from charging women more for health insurance than men because of perceived higher costs associated with women's reproductive health needs.

Unaffordability of medicines is also closely linked to intellectual property laws, many of which provide exclusive patents for new medicines for long periods. However, intellectual property laws that fail to address the medical needs of women obstruct access to medicines by pushing up the price and by impeding the production and distribution of low-cost generic drugs. The right to health requires States to ensure that the pharmaceutical companies that hold a patent on essential medicines and medical devices make use of all the arrangements at their disposal to render the medicines accessible to all.

A number of countries have legal guarantees that protect women in the case of conscience-based refusal of care. They include the requirement of referral to non-objecting providers, registration/written notice to the employer and/or a government body, disclosure of information to patients about the provider's status as a conscientious objector, provision of services in cases of emergency, and restriction of the right to conscientious objection to the individuals directly involved in the medical intervention and not institutions or those indirectly involved, such as pharmacists. The Working Group reiterates that the enjoyment of the right to freedom of religion or belief cannot be used to justify gender discrimination and therefore should not be regarded as a justification for hindering the realization of women's right to the highest attainable standard of health.

Restrictions in many countries on girls' and women's access to unbiased, quality education, including evidence-based comprehensive sexuality education, and information about where and how to obtain essential health services prevent women from making free and informed decisions about their health and safety and hence obstruct proper, informed access to health care. This is particularly true for adolescents and marginalized women facing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination. Such restrictions are manifestations of censorship that limit women's and girls' choices.

States have an obligation to provide education, one of whose aims is to facilitate access to scientific and technical knowledge. This is of crucial importance with respect to questions of sexuality, reproduction and health education. States have an obligation to allow information about health matters to flow freely, without State interference on moral or other grounds. It also encompasses the possibility for non-State actors to disseminate information, including in relation to sexuality and sexual and reproductive health services. However, States also have an obligation to address and eliminate harmful and wrongful gender stereotypes that contribute to the violation of women's right to health and safety.

The Working Group will use the term of "good" or "promising" practices rather than "best" practices to take into account the complex contextual framework of practices located in the wide spectrum of bad to good practices. This builds on existing work on this issue by other special procedure mandate holders, which includes the preference towards using the terminology of "good practices". The Working Group seeks to look at good practices that have been transformative in relation to eliminating discrimination against women in law and in practice in different contexts and in the light of the different realities that women face.

[The Working Group will examine:] (a) The extent to which States have met the obligation to respect women's rights to equality and to the exercise and fulfilment by women of human rights and fundamental freedoms. This will involve surveying existing and newly introduced discriminatory laws and practices. The Working Group will pay special attention to the direct or indirect inclusion of discriminatory provisions in legislation or case law that apply discriminatory interpretations of statutory, customary, religious or deontological regulations. The Working Group will compile good practices in the elimination of laws and regulations that are both directly and indirectly discriminatory to women. The examination of good practices for this purpose would include constitutional amendments, judicial review, legislative reform, litigation and case law, policy and institutional reform, independent human rights monitoring, political action, and religious or cultural hermeneutic projects;

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), in its 2013 Plan of Action for Gender-sensitive Parliaments, has drawn attention to the need for gender sensitivity in the composition, structures, operations, methods and work of parliaments. In the plan, it noted that "gender-sensitive parliaments remove the barriers to women's full participation and offer a positive example or model to society at large" (p. 8). The Working Group considers the IPU plan of action to be adaptable for other public and political institutions in which women's equal representation must be secured.

The election and appointment of women to public and political office is a necessary condition for equality in public and political life, but the number of women in office is insufficient for advancing gender equality in society. Evidence shows that women who are appointed or elected to public office do not necessarily promote gender-equality agendas. Policy outcomes that advance substantive equality between men and women involve larger processes of public debate, alliance-building across political divides, and activism by autonomous women's movements based on universal standards of equality, non-discrimination, human rights and inclusive democracy.

At the same time, international commitment to fulfilling women's equal right to political participation has grown substantially. The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and its outcome document, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, whose twentieth anniversary is being commemorated in 2013, gave recognition to women's rights as human rights. In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women and its outcome document, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, became the catalyst for governments around the world to introduce special measures, such as quotas for women's political representation, and propelled the doubling of the global average of such representation in less than two decades. Further, the Security Council made an historic breakthrough in 2000 when it adopted its resolution 1325 (2000), with a view to enhancing the role of women and the gender perspective in conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

In the legislative branch, the current global average of women in national parliaments is 20 per cent. While this achievement marks a first in history, the climb has been slow, revealing a global average increase of less than 1 per cent per year. Only 33 countries out of 149 have national parliaments where women constitute 30 per cent or more of the members. With parity as the ultimate measure of equality, then a mere two countries have reached this point. Furthermore, there are wide divergences among States, with women accounting for less than 10 per cent of representatives in 45 States.

The political will to revise or repeal discriminatory laws can arise voluntarily as part of an overall renegotiation of the social contract, and as an act of astute policymaking compelled by social economic developments that have brought about undeniable and irreversible changes in women's roles in practice. The growing participation of women in political, economic, social and cultural life has contributed to the introduction of gender-responsive changes in laws and policies on protection in the workplace, security in the home and community, and entitlements in property ownership and electoral processes.

Progress is not linear, however, and new political openings can bring about backlash, reverse advances and produce new forms of discriminatory laws and practices. Complex national reforms can result in contradictory laws and policies, between national/federal and subnational/local levels, across different regions of the country, and among sectors of social and economic life. Good practices in eliminating discrimination against women in law and in practice include the ability to overcome backlash or backsliding and establish grounds for the sustainability of achievements in substantive equality.

At the same time, no effective implementation of equality guarantees for women can be sustained without the genuine empowerment of women in all fields. This can only be achieved on the solid foundation of women's equal access to fundamental freedoms and rights, including the rights to security of person, to privacy, to freedom of expression, to freedom of association, and to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, in the context of the broader array of civil and political rights. Women's enjoyment of those freedoms and rights, in turn, can be attained only if they are able to benefit from their economic, social and cultural rights, including equal rights to property, occupation and employment, social protection and participation in cultural life, as well as from effective protection against violence.

To achieve substantive equality in all fields, women initiate, lead and sustain long-term negotiations in formal political and legal institutions as well as in social and cultural organizations and communities. Women take action to end all forms of discrimination and human rights violations, independently as individuals and/or collectively as part of groups, organizations, coalitions and movements. Unprecedented levels of global migration, persistent poverty and inequalities, long-standing unresolved disputes and wars have compelled women to address the human rights of non-citizens and stateless persons, particularly the gendered implications of violations of their human rights. By claiming their place as full and equal citizens of nations and of the global community, women have become crucial agents of change in eliminating discrimination against women in law and in practice. Good practices in sustaining achievements in equality and non-discrimination involve the active agency of women themselves.

Effective political participation of women requires not only admission to political institutions but also integration into their decision-making forums. Women's full participation requires concerted action to overcome the de facto segregation of women's political participation in sectors which are stereotypically associated with women's gender roles. It requires that women be integrated into positions with decision-making power across the spectrum of issues dealt with by the institutions to which they have been elected or appointed. During political transitions, the same applies to all transitional authorities and mechanisms.

Caregiving responsibilities in the family are disproportionately in the hands of women. Both the reality and the a priori belief that this is the way it should be put women at a structural disadvantage in entering and participating sustainably in political and public life. The long hours of work and heavy travel demands make it difficult for women with caregiving responsibilities to maintain consistent engagement in political and public life without adequate support for the caring responsibilities. At the same time, women who carry out full-time engagement in politics and public affairs are often harassed and stigmatized, as they are perceived to undermine traditional family values.

Good practice regarding the work-life balance for public and political participation includes both childcare support and institutional family-friendly scheduling. The highest performing countries in terms of proportion of women in public office have the most generous entitlements for maternal and parental leave. This reflects States' effectiveness in creating better options for women to reconcile the balance between work and family life, promoting a better balance of responsibilities between men and women in the home and encouraging a higher percentage of fathers to take parental leave. This demonstrates a significant cultural change in society's views of gender roles, which is itself a culmination of decades of responsive social policies. Good practices regarding gender-sensitive parliaments are found in some Western European and other States that have changed the scheduling of parliamentary session to allow a work-life balance for Members of Parliament who have parental responsibilities.

Stigmatization, harassment and outright attacks have been used to silence and discredit women who are outspoken as leaders, community workers, human rights defenders and politicians. Sexual harassment against female political candidates has been reported as a tactic to discourage women from exercising their right to vote and run for elections. Women defenders are often the target of gender-specific violence, such as verbal abuse based on their sex, sexual abuse or rape; they may experience intimidation, attacks, death threats and even murder by community members. Violence against women defenders is sometimes condoned or perpetrated by State actors, including through police harassment of female demonstrators.

Effective elimination of discrimination against women in political and public life relies on the capacity to implement legal guarantees of equality between men and women in this field. National women's machineries set up within the executive bodies of States have been consistently underresourced and are therefore disadvantaged in carrying out their functions. Autonomous women's movements which promote universal standards of equality and non-discrimination are key players, both for maintaining the continued existence of these national machineries as well as for promoting their effectiveness. The equal participation of women from minority, indigenous and other marginalized communities in decision-making positions is the measure of a full implementation of legal guarantees and measures.

NHRIs play a crucial role in providing human rights protection and access to redress for politically active women at risk. Given the complex obstacles deeply rooted in structural inequalities and multiple intersections of social-cultural exclusion, women's effective participation in political and public life can be achieved only when they have equal and full access to all mechanisms of independent human rights monitoring and redress, particularly in contexts where the risks are high. Gender responsiveness and gender balance in NHRIs and other human rights institutions at the regional and international levels are imperative.

However, there are no international standards for NHRIs to integrate gender and women's rights into their work, resulting in the uneven responsiveness of NHRIs to the specific protection needs of women in political and public life, including women human rights defenders and female politicians at the local level. Specialized NHRIs on women's human rights exist in some countries, but no mechanism guarantees coordination between specialized and the main national human rights bodies, resulting in serious gaps and the risk of fragmented national human rights systems.

Making justice systems work for women, whether by catalysing legal reform, or supporting legal aid, one-stop shops and training for judges, is key to the sustainability of women's political participation. This area requires investment. Recognizing the importance of strengthening the rule of law, Governments spend a significant amount on legal and judicial development and human rights. However, targeted funding for gender equality remains low, and gender budgeting initiatives are primarily focused on providing financial resources within State institutions.

For women's participation in political and public life to be meaningful it must be on equal footing with that of men, covering all aspects of political and public life, and effective in achieving substantive outcomes on equality between men and women in all fields of life. Women's economic independence and the economic viability of their enterprises and collective actions are crucial, and the conditions necessary for this to be achievable is distinct for differently located women, defined by the unique intersections of multiple forms of discrimination experienced by them. Political transitions do not always lead to inclusive democracy and long-lasting peace, and require the effectiveness of autonomous women's movements to ground universal standards of human rights in political and public life.

There is a related problem of segregation in the formal labour market, with women clustered in "pink collar", largely service sector, jobs with inferior working conditions, less job security and lower pay. In high-income countries, more than 85 per cent of employed women work in the service sector, primarily in education and health. In order to address wage gaps resulting from occupational segregation, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and ILO Conventions require equal pay for equal work or for work of equal value, comparable in skill, responsibility, effort and working conditions. The ILO guide to gender-neutral job evaluation provides an objective evaluation system. The ILO also recommends that policies to combat occupational segregation also encourage men to enter occupations traditionally associated with women.

Women in the informal economy have, furthermore, been deeply affected by economic crisis. There is an "added worker" effect, whereby women enter the labour force to provide additional income security to the household, often forcing them into precarious work, migrant labour overseas or exposing them to trafficking. According to Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, nearly 40 per cent of street vendors interviewed in developing countries in 2009 had experienced an overall deterioration of employment and income levels, and 84 per cent of own-account home-based workers reported reduced monthly incomes.

Domestic workers caring for children, the disabled and ageing people, are a highly vulnerable category of employees, often in the informal sector. About 83 per cent are women or girls, and many are migrant workers. Domestic workers often encounter deplorable working conditions; labour exploitation; extortionate recruitment fees resulting in debt; confiscation of passports; long, unregulated hours of work; lack of privacy; exposure to physical and sexual abuse; and separation from their own families and children. The ILO Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189) calls for States to guarantee decent work for domestic workers, and thus several countries have introduced new protections.

Women migrant workers face exploitation and abuse, often finding themselves in precarious employment without effective legal protections, particularly if they have irregular or undocumented legal status. About half of the world's migrant workers are women, most of them finding work in traditionally female-dominated occupations such as domestic work or in the garment and textile industries. General Recommendation No. 26 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, on women migrant workers, emphasizes that all categories of women migrants must be protected against discrimination. The ILO Migrant Workers Convention (No. 143) and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families also provide important protections.

Reducing informal work for women means increasing women's opportunities to work in the formal labour market. States, in different regions and at different income levels, have invested in the reskilling or professionalization of unemployed persons, with targeted benefits for women, such as retraining for jobs, especially for those with family responsibilities, or in setting quotas for women in employment guarantee programmes targeted at the poorest households. In the 2008 economic crisis, some States engaged in good practice specifically preserving women's jobs, and four countries in different regions increased their public works programmes with focus on female participation.

Reconstructing informal employment is often possible through legal interpretation or law enforcement. Legal factors that exclude informal workers from the coverage of protective labour laws include narrow definitions of the employment relationship, recognition of contracting out, specific exclusions and lack of enforcement. There is some judicial good practice to void the use of "flexibilized" patterns of employment by employers seeking to avoid their labour law obligations; of extending anti-discrimination legislation to leased employees; and of applying a pro rata system to employment conditions of part-time, temporary or leased workers. Reconstructing the informal labour in order to guarantee decent work for women also requires extending all social security rights, including maternity and care rights, to informal sector employees.

It is crucial to recognize both the right to maternity benefits and also the right to an equal and fair distribution of care functions as fully-fledged economic and social rights. These rights are a prerequisite for the equal right of women to the enjoyment of all economic social and cultural rights and, in particular: the right to work; the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work; an adequate standard of living; freedom from hunger; enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; and the right to take part in cultural life.

Patterns of allocation are often not the result of choice, but rather of stereotyping and discrimination. There is evidence, in most countries, of discrimination in hiring, firing and workplace treatment of pregnant women; imposition of a disproportionate share of unpaid care responsibilities on women; and negative stereotyping of mothers and also fathers who are taking care of children. Cultural assumptions of the motherhood role appear to exist in tension with the conception of the ideal worker. Nevertheless, in a cross-regional comparison of selected countries, it was found that motherhood does not uniformly reduce labour force participation or occupational success and, indeed, it increases these in some countries as compared to women without children. However, it does reduce the number of hours worked and, even more, it increases, disproportionately and beyond any difference that might be explained by the reduction of work hours, the gap between mothers' wages and fathers' wages.

Women's reproductive functions include pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. These are the biological functions of maternity. In accordance with the normative framework created by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the ILO Conventions, in some States, there are provisions, statutory or judicial, prohibiting discrimination during pregnancy and protecting women against dismissal for a period of months or even years after they give birth. Nevertheless, there has been a rise in complaints of pregnancy discrimination in a number of countries, and effective measures are required to guarantee women's employment security during pregnancy and after birth.

The frameworks of the ILO and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women impose an obligation on States parties to provide paid maternity leave to employed women, set by the ILO at a minimum of 14 weeks with a recommended 18 weeks, and daily breaks for breastfeeding. The provision of maternity leave has become almost universal: 51 per cent of countries provide maternity leave of at least 14 weeks; 20 per cent of 18 weeks or more; 35 per cent of 12-13 weeks of leave. Only 14 per cent of countries provide less than 12 weeks.

State obligation under the Convention and ILO Conventions is to provide paid leave. Maternity leave policies without adequate compensation can lead to financial stress, and research suggests that women who return to work without taking their full maternity leave entitlement usually do so for financial reasons. Good practice for payment of maternity leave is through social insurance or public funds so as not to increase discrimination against women by employers seeking to avoid the burden of paid maternity leave.

Unlike women's reproductive function, care functions do not necessarily have to fall on women. All forms of care, including childcare, are amenable to social reconstruction, and indeed in the Nordic countries, which have long pursued a policy of gender equality in the division of work and childcare functions, the distribution of care work comes close to parity. Good practice regarding the allocation of care responsibilities, pioneered in the Nordic countries, encourages men to enter traditionally women's worlds, both in the family and in the workplace, thus allowing women to participate and advance in the labour market.

Recognition of unpaid care work entails the imposition, on the international and constitutional levels, of a state obligation to guarantee an equal distribution of care functions as a fully-fledged economic and social right. It also signifies the recognition of care expenses as part of the gross national product, thus requiring integration of the care economy into the macroeconomy. It necessitates the prohibition of direct or indirect discrimination on grounds of care functions, as established by the ILO and the European Court of Justice. Furthermore, it justifies the good practice of recognizing care expenses as deductible for income tax purposes, since provision of care for dependents is a necessary expenditure to allow an unpaid caretaker to generate income.

Redistributing care work involves restructuring the design, funding and delivery of care by households, markets, the State and civil society so that a disproportionate burden of unpaid care does not fall on women. The equal sharing of care amongst different actors requires, on one hand, the sharing of care responsibilities by men as well as women in households and, on the other, the provision by the State of affordable and accessible care facilities, including childcare, adequate hospital care and recuperation periods, and facilities for the care of the disabled and the elderly.

Sharing of care responsibilities within the household should remain a matter of choice for women and men. For any real choice to be possible, paid care leave must be available to both parents. The Nordic countries were the first to introduce an independent paternity leave in order to overcome stereotypes and barriers to men sharing childcare functions. Such provisions are becoming more common around the world, with increased awareness of men's parenting roles and their need to reconcile work and family life. Paternity leave is usually much shorter than maternity leave and more often unpaid. Some countries have introduced more gender-neutral parental leave options, and recent best practice in one Nordic country provides symmetry in childcare leave, with five months for each parent individually and two months that can be allocated according to parental choice.

Good practices include gender-specific compensatory measures such as continuing pension contributions during maternity and childcare leaves, unisex calculation of benefits, equalizing mandatory retirement age and mandatory joint annuities. All these measures, with quite wide margins of difference in the extent of their generosity and with some caveats as to the categories of women who do not benefit from each of these measures, have some marginal impact in reducing the pension gap. Of these gender-specific measures, the only one that almost closes the gender pension gap is mandatory joint annuities. This suggests that the way to rectify women's relative poverty in old age is through mandating joint annuities with their husbands. However, this does not solve the problem for single or divorced women. Furthermore, it leaves the problem of engineering a system that is equitable for traditional dependent marriages and yet can still incentivize economically independent women.

Gender-based violence against women, including state violation of women's bodily integrity and autonomy, violence in the public arena, violence in workplaces and educational institutions, and domestic violence and economic violence by intimate partners, can severely impact and restrict women's economic and social potential throughout their life cycle, including their access to education, freedom of movement and employment. In economic and social institutions, women are exposed to sexual harassment, including unwelcome sexual behaviour, remarks, and pornographic images and demands, whether by words or actions. Such conduct is threatening and humiliating.

Many countries prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace, whether it is quid pro quo (extorting sexual cooperation by threat of job-related consequences) or creating a hostile environment, and impose accountability on the employer. Out of 100 countries surveyed, 78 have laws addressing sexual harassment in the workplace, and of these, 52 criminalize such conduct. The legal prohibition of sexual harassment has been based, variously, on the concepts of discrimination against women and of violation of women's human dignity, and good practice is to apply a "double approach" involving both concepts.

In addition, women are exposed to sexual harassment in the public arena, including service institutions, public transport, "street harassment," cyberbullying and pornographic advertising, producing a fear factor that severely curtails their freedom of movement and occupation. However, only 8 out of 100 States have enacted laws prohibiting sexual harassment in public places. Good practice includes prohibition of sexual harassment in the provision of services. It entails municipal responsibility for policing, lighting and introducing surveillance cameras in public spaces.

School-related gender-based violence takes different forms, with girls in some countries violently targeted for attending school, while in other countries, they are subject in school to sexual violence or harassment, including by teachers. Such violence results in trauma, stigmatization and sometimes pregnancy, and severely curtails girls' educational opportunities. In many States, sexual intercourse with a minor is considered rape, as minors are not capable of consent, but only 32 out of 100 States have specific provisions on sexual harassment at schools. Examples of good practices by some States include introducing confidential school reporting mechanisms, capacity-building for police, child-friendly courts, a public register of sexual offenders and barring sexual offenders from teaching.

Parallel justice systems apply religious, customary or indigenous laws, which, as shown above, are patriarchal. These systems are mostly dominated by men and therefore tend to perpetuate inequalities and patriarchal interpretations of culture, resulting in discrimination against women. Regardless of whether the law is religious or customary, its provisions are often interpreted differently for men and women. The rulings and procedures of these legal mechanisms generally discriminate against women. Moreover, gender-based violence is seldom punished and is sometimes downplayed by religious or customary law courts.

Good practice in protecting women's right to equality in formal plural legal systems takes several forms. The adoption of constitutional laws that require autonomous courts, tribunals or arbitrators to respect women's right to equality in terms of both women's representation in justice systems and the formulation and application of procedural and substantive rules is a good practice implemented in several States. Since the 1980s, 11 Latin American States have formally recognized indigenous laws and courts in their constitutional laws, requiring the legal systems of indigenous communities to respect and enforce women's rights.

The right to appeal, before the State courts, discriminatory decisions of indigenous courts, tribunals or arbitrators is another good practice. The commitment of indigenous women in some countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, to securing State recognition of parallel systems has enabled them to challenge, in the State system, the discrimination they suffered in indigenous legal systems. Women's participation as legal arbitrators, and also as lawmakers, is needed to draw attention to discrimination and to sensitive subjects such as rape or domestic violence, most victims of which are women.

Jurisdiction is exercised informally when jurisdictional powers are not the result of an express grant of judicial authority by the State. Such jurisdiction is generally not recognized by the State. Such situations may arise when religious, indigenous or customary authority is exercised by judges, arbitrators or other alternative dispute settlement procedures that are not authorized or tolerated by the State and/or of which the State is unaware. These systems operate without oversight by the State, and, while some may have been recognized previously in law, often under former colonial systems, they are now beyond State control.

Plural legal systems create complex and confusing legal situations. Various United Nations treaty bodies have sought to show how these systems limit women's enjoyment of the right to equality in their private and public lives, while acknowledging the richness of cultural diversity. Even if there is no special recognition by the State of informal legal systems or formal delegation of functions by the State to traditional chiefs, the State should extend its protection, as referred to in article 2 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The State has a direct obligation to protect and respect women's right to equality in all the forms of family law considered above. It is held responsible for any breach of its obligations, including in cases where it has, through its constitution, laws or judicial decisions, assigned jurisdiction over family law matters to a religious, indigenous or customary court, tribunal or authority. Moreover, the State has an obligation to exercise due diligence to guarantee and protect women's right to equality in informal plural legal systems.

In the event of violations and discrimination against women, the State has an obligation to investigate and prosecute. The State must take measures to guarantee privacy, confidentiality and safety of victims, and to address women's needs and fears, while ensuring that they are not subject to stigmatization, social ostracism or reprisals. The State must be able to foster confidence in the police and the judicial process, including within plural legal systems. To this end, it must ensure that State bodies and courts systematically apply the principle of equality when interpreting and enforcing the law and that they do so in conformity with international standards. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has pointed out that, where this is not possible, the State is still liable and must take appropriate action.

The State must act as an agent of change as regards women's place in cultural and family life, by fostering and creating a culture free of all forms of discrimination against women. A transformative approach to women and girls' status in the family is crucial. There needs to be awareness that, in the past, a patriarchal concept of family pervaded all secular, religious, customary and indigenous laws and institutions and that some States and groups are now trying, in a retrograde manner, to subject women to the most oppressive forms of patriarchy, particularly in the context of religious fanaticism. It should also be understood that the transition towards equality between women and men, and girls and boys, in the culture and in the family is a prerequisite for a decent society.

Several States have adopted this type of legal system as a way of acknowledging cultural diversity. However, legal pluralism is also used by some actors to promote political and ideological interests. Approximately 80 per cent of claims or disputes are resolved by parallel justice systems, signifying that most women in developing countries access justice in a plural legal environment. The existence of social, economic, institutional and cultural barriers and the lack of confidence in formal systems may explain the widespread use of these parallel systems. Poverty and a lack of information on accessing formal justice and education are the main factors that lead women to use parallel justice systems.

Denial of access to essential health services with respect to termination of pregnancy, contraception, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and infertility treatment has particularly serious consequences for women's health and lives. Women may be denied such services through criminalization, reduction of availability, stigmatization, deterrence or derogatory attitudes of health-care professionals. In reality, denial of access drives service provision underground into the hands of unqualified practitioners. This exacerbates the risks to the health and safety of the affected women. Persistently high maternal mortality rates often reflect a lack of investment in and underprioritization of services required only by women

The Working Group notes with concern that issues relating to women's health are not addressed in a holistic manner on political and health agendas at the national and international levels. Policies regarding women's health services are often limited to questions of "maternal health". Despite the importance of prioritizing this issue, such a restrictive focus fails to recognize the full spectrum of women's rights to sexual and reproductive health at all stages of their life cycle and contributes to the instrumentalization of women's bodies, viewing them mainly as a means of reproduction.

Many girls are exposed to a wide variety of practices which are harmful to their health and well-being, such as female genital mutilation, discrimination in food allocation resulting in malnutrition and discrimination in access to professional health care. Furthermore, early marriage and adolescent pregnancy have a long-lasting impact on girls' physical integrity and mental health. Pregnancy and childbirth are together the second leading cause of death among 15- to 19-year-old girls globally, putting them at the highest risk of dying or suffering serious lifelong injuries as a result of pregnancy. For example, up to 65 per cent of women with obstetric fistula, which is a severely disabling condition and often results in social exclusion, develop this condition as adolescents.

During pregnancy, many women are vulnerable to malnutrition owing to discrimination in the allocation of food. This can result in a serious and irreversible deterioration of women's general health and increase the risk of premature delivery, low birth weight and birth defects. After childbirth, such discrimination can continue to affect women's health, including in connection with breastfeeding. Furthermore, as stated by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, structural violence is an underexamined barrier to women's right to adequate food and nutrition. Gender-based violence, which is a primary form of discrimination, can impede women from accessing adequate food and nutrition.

Delays in seeking appropriate medical care, in reaching an appropriate health facility and in receiving appropriate care once at a facility, along with the lack of accessible maternal health care, are the main reasons behind high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. A human rights-based approach that provides a functioning health system with adequate supplies, equipment and infrastructure as well as an efficient system of communication, referral and transport are therefore essential to eliminate these preventable deaths and to ensure women's rights to health and life.

Women migrant workers, especially those in irregular situations, have greater difficulty in accessing almost all forms of health care, including maternal care, emergency care and treatment for chronic diseases and mental health problems, because they are often denied these rights legally and/or they fear arrest and deportation. In some countries, while legal access to health care for migrant women has been expanded, they still do not receive needed medical services because health-care providers often refuse treat them.

Migrant women may be subject to mandatory pregnancy tests upon arrival in some countries; if the test is positive, they are dismissed and/or deported. Furthermore, pregnancy tests can be imposed on migrant domestic workers during the course of their employment, leading to pregnant women losing their jobs and/or seeking termination of the pregnancy, sometimes by means of unsafe practices, especially in countries that criminalize induced termination. Migrant women have been charged with "illegal sexual relationships" when they become pregnant, including following rape. They are held in detention centres in deplorable conditions pending their deportation, or face severe punishment, including the death penalty in countries where sexual relationships outside marriage are criminalized.

Indigenous women experience a complex spectrum of mutually reinforcing human rights abuses which is influenced by intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization, reinforced by patriarchal power structures and past and present forms of violations of the right to self-determination and control of resources. These intersecting forms of discrimination have profound health consequences for indigenous women, especially for their reproductive and sexual health. The Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples has reported (see A/HRC/30/41) about the barriers to reproductive and sexual health services encountered by indigenous women as well as past and recurrent human rights violations in relation to their sexual and reproductive rights. For example, indigenous women experience disproportionately higher levels of maternal mortality, indigenous girls are overrepresented among pregnant teenagers and indigenous women have lower rates of contraceptive use and higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. Historically, there have also been instances of serious violations of indigenous women's rights to reproductive health in the context of the denial of the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination and cultural autonomy. Those violations include forced sterilization of indigenous women and attempts to force them to have children with non-indigenous men as part of policies of cultural assimilation. Indigenous women may also face barriers to preventive care services that support their right to health, such as screening for ovarian and breast cancer.

The deplorable health outcomes for indigenous women are linked to decades of oppression and human rights violations against indigenous peoples, and against indigenous women in particular. Furthermore, non-indigenous health systems generally do not take into account the indigenous concept of health and health care, thereby creating barriers to access by indigenous women. Data usually fail to capture information on indigenous communities, rendering them "invisible". Even when such information exists, it is generally not disaggregated by sex. Additionally, indigenous women are disproportionately affected by illness owing to reduced coping capacity caused by the denial of other human rights and by extreme poverty.

As highlighted by the Special Rapporteur on minority issues (A/HRC/31/56), minority women, including women affected by discrimination based on caste, are particularly vulnerable to violations of their right to health, including reproductive and sexual health. Women members of "lower caste" groups present the worst health outcomes, especially in terms of life expectancy, access to maternal care, nutrition and incidence of infections. Roma women are the subjects of degrading stereotypes, depicted as "fertile" and "promiscuous"; this increases their vulnerability to gender-based violence and forced sterilization.

Women in detention have specific health needs, particularly in terms of mental and reproductive health care, that are often neglected. Preventive services related to cervical and breast cancer are often unavailable and antiretroviral therapy, even for pregnant women living with HIV/AIDS, is completely absent in some facilities. The lack of adequate access to hygiene facilities and products for women prisoners is a typical and crucial concern in all regions of the world, jeopardizing the dignity and health of women prisoners. Practices such as shackling pregnant inmates during labour still occur in some countries. Detained women also face violence, including sexual violence from other prisoners or by staff.

Similarly, instrumentalization and stigmatization are at work regarding breastfeeding in public spaces and at workplaces. Aside from the fact that breastfeeding is often promoted or discouraged for economic reasons, it may be viewed as inappropriate even in countries where the practice is legally protected, exposing women to unnecessary stress and pressure from intimidation and harassment. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the majority of the approximately 830 million women workers worldwide do not enjoy workplace policies that support nursing mothers.

Viewing women's behaviour and biological physiology, in particular their reproductive functions and sexuality, as symptomatic of medical problems reflects a history of gendered pathologization. Historically, pathologization, unnecessary medicalization and institutionalization in mental care facilities have functioned as forms of social control exercised by patriarchal establishments to preserve the gender roles of women. Pathologization of women's behaviour has been evidenced in psychiatric diagnoses, which often directly target perceived immoral activity such as unconventional sexual activity or intellectual independence as a source of mental illness or disorder.

The Working Group is concerned that many national laws and policies provide for overmedicalization of certain services that women need to preserve their health without a justified medical reason. These include requirements that only doctors can perform certain services, such as pharmaceutical termination of pregnancy or obstetric care. In many countries, women are not given a free choice between different ways of giving birth. Caesarian sections, when medically justified, can be crucial in preventing maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. However, studies conducted by WHO demonstrated that performing caesarian sections on more than 10 per cent of women does not lead to improvement in mortality rates. Caesarean section rates of 30 per cent in some countries demonstrate overmedicalization of childbirth, with the risks of obstetrical complications and health problems.

Overmedicalization may result in reduced access to or affordability of services needed by women and a barrier to developing adequate alternative services which can be competently provided by nurses, midwives or auxiliary nurses, either at clinics or at home. Such "task shifting", particularly in places where there are few qualified doctors, would make services more accessible. Similarly, restricting authorization for the use of contraceptives to a medical practitioner is a barrier to access. Allowing pharmacists to provide contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives, over the counter is essential for effective availability, especially for economically disadvantaged women or adolescent girls.

[In relation to reproductive and sexual health care, the Working Group recommends that States:] Repeal restrictive laws and policies in relation to termination of pregnancy, especially in cases of risk to the life or health, including the mental health, of the pregnant woman, rape, incest and fatal impairment of the fetus, recognizing that such laws and policies in any case primarily affect women living in poverty in a highly discriminatory way;

Women's right to enjoy their cultural rights as equals is an integral part of their right to participation in political and public life. In the light of the persistent use of cultural and traditional values to justify resistance to women's political and public roles, women's capacity for equal participation depends on their autonomous agency regarding cultural life. As articulated by the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, this involves: The freedom to create new communities of shared cultural values around any markers of identity they want to privilege, new cultural meanings and practices without fear of punitive actions, including any form of violence. This means that women must be able to embrace or reject particular cultural practices and identities as well as to revise and (re)negotiate existing traditions, values or practices, regardless of their provenance. Active engagement in the cultural sphere … helps to build central traits of democratic citizenship.

Special measures, including quotas for women and other temporary measures, as required under article 4, paragraph 1, of the Convention and general recommendations No. 23 (1997) and No. 25 (2004) of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, are necessary to achieve equality between men and women in political and public life, in order to contend with the underlying structural disadvantaging of women. The most significant increase in the numbers of women in national parliaments over the years has occurred in countries where special measures, such as gender quotas, have been effectively constructed and implemented. The use of quotas to advance women's political representation and participation has increased in the past three decades and produced significant results when properly adapted to specific electoral and political systems.

The Working Group observes that the impact of political transitions on gender equality in public and political life is inherently related not only to the nature of regime change but also to the political will of the incoming Government to guarantee women's human rights, including the right to equal representation, and requires a responsive political leadership with respect to gender equality concerns, including as raised by autonomous women's movements. The Working Group notes the urgency for women's equal and full participation in peace negotiations and in decision-making in all transitional authorities, mechanisms and processes.

The Working Group is concerned that the knowledge gap remains on the whole spectrum of women's participation in political and public life. This undermines the capacity to move to gender-responsive inclusive democracy, development and peace. Most available data is not sufficiently disaggregated to allow the understanding of the intersectionality of gender with other grounds of discrimination, in the light of Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women general recommendation No. 28 (2010) according to which "discrimination against women based on sex and gender is inextricably linked with other factors that affect women, such as race, ethnicity, religion or belief, health, status, age, class, caste and sexual orientation and gender identity" (para. 18). Evidence-based knowledge is weak on the extent of violence against women in political and public life and its impact on women's capacity to exercise their right to political participation.

The gender-specific application of emerging international standards of the state obligation to provide mechanisms of accountability for violations of economic and social rights, including courts and quasi-judicial bodies, still requires grounded elaboration. Promising developments exist. With regard to the state obligation of due diligence for human rights violations by corporations, the Guidelines for multinational enterprises of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development apply corporate conduct standards requiring non-discrimination in the selection, promotion and dismissal of women. The extraterritorial obligations of States, articulated in the Maastricht Principles adopted in 2011 by a group of experts in international law and human rights, have been applied by General Recommendation No. 30 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to women's rights in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations.

[The Working Group recommends that States:] Establish a national legal framework recognizing gender equality in cultural and family life, in accordance with regional and international standards: (iii) Develop national strategies to eradicate cultural practices that discriminate against women and girls, as well as gender stereotypes, through awareness-raising campaigns, educational and informational programmes and stakeholder mobilization. Engage men, as appropriate, in prevention and protection efforts in respect of gender-based discrimination and violence;

Plural legal systems are systems in which various laws coexist. They may include various combinations of codified civil law, religious law systems, indigenous or customary legal codes, community arbitration or other dispute settlement procedures. Plural legal systems may be formal or informal. They most often affect personal status law and family law. In States with plural legal systems, the State legal system, which is generally civil and codified, and the State courts address matters relating to the public sphere.

[The Working Group recommends that States:] Establish a national legal framework recognizing gender equality in cultural and family life, in accordance with regional and international standards: (i) Recognize and enshrine, in their constitutions and laws, the right to equality, which should apply in all areas of life and have primacy over all religious, customary and indigenous laws, norms, codes and rules, with no possibility of exemption, waiver or circumvention;

[The Working Group recommends that States:] Establish a national legal framework recognizing gender equality in cultural and family life, in accordance with regional and international standards: (ii) Promote access to, participation in and contributions by women to all aspects of cultural life, including the definition, creation and interpretation of cultural and religious norms and practices, by providing equal resources, adopting special measures and policies, and facilitating women's access to decision-making positions and policymaking processes, at all levels;

The discriminatory use of criminal law, punitive sanctions and legal restrictions to regulate women's control over their own bodies is a severe and unjustified form of State control. This can include punitive provisions in criminal, civil and administrative laws and regulations governing extramarital consensual sex, same-sex consensual adult relations, gender non-conforming expressions, provision of reproductive and sexual education and information, termination of pregnancy and prostitution/sex work. The enforcement of such provisions generates stigma and discrimination and violates women's human rights. It infringes women's dignity and bodily integrity by restricting their autonomy to make decisions about their own lives and health.

Criminalization of termination of pregnancy is one of the most damaging ways of instrumentalizing and politicizing women's bodies and lives, subjecting them to risks to their lives or health in order to preserve their function as reproductive agents and depriving them of autonomy in decision-making about their own bodies. Restrictive laws apply to 40 per cent of women worldwide. In some countries, as a result of retrogressive anti-abortion laws, women are imprisoned for having had a miscarriage, imposing an intolerable cost on the women, their families and their societies.

In addition, restrictions on access to information on termination of pregnancy and services can deter women from seeking professional medical attention, with detrimental consequences for their health and safety. Examples of restrictions include criminalization of medical practitioners who provide these services; prohibiting access to information on legal termination of pregnancy; requiring third-party authorization from one or more medical professionals, a hospital committee, a parent, guardian or spouse; conscientious objection by health practitioners without provision of an alternative; requiring compulsory waiting periods; and excluding coverage for termination of pregnancy services under health insurance. None of these requirements is justified on health grounds.

International and regional human rights bodies have called on States to decriminalize access to termination of pregnancy and to liberalize laws and policies in order to guarantee women's access to safe services. Treaty bodies, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, have requested States, through their jurisprudence, their general comments/recommendations and their concluding observations, to review national legislation with a view to decriminalizing termination of pregnancy and to ensure a woman's right to termination of pregnancy where there is a threat to her life or health, or where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. The Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee have determined that, in some cases, being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term amounts to cruel and inhuman treatment.

International organizations and human rights bodies have called on States to ensure, at a minimum, that women in prostitution/sex workers have the right to access sexual health services; are free from violence or discrimination, whether committed by State agents or private persons; and have access to equal protection of the law. In particular, States should also ensure that law enforcement officials serve a protective function, as opposed to engaging in or perpetuating violence against women in prostitution/sex workers. A number of States have introduced regulations that cover health and safety issues, including access to health services, medical insurance and social security benefits that have had a positive impact on women engaged in prostitution/sex work.

In its one year of existence, the Working Group has developed and refined its methods of work, articulated its substantive priorities and developed a plan for implementing its tasks. Given the breadth of its mandate, covering discrimination against women in law and in practice in all fields, the Working Group is focusing on two priority themes in 2012 and 2013, namely, discrimination against women in law and in practice in the contexts of political and public life and of economic and social life. The Working Group is looking at the impact of political transitions and the economic crisis on the enjoyment by women of their human rights.

The Working Group is aiming to respond to the expectations placed on it by numerous individuals and organizations in relation to issues of discrimination against women. It is communicating with Governments on various issues within its mandate and is undertaking outreach and partnerships with a range of stakeholders to both inform and support its own work and ensure that its outputs catalyse further actions by stakeholders. It looks forward to continuing this engagement with all stakeholders and to responding to issues addressed to it on discrimination against women in law and in practice.

In September 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, participating Governments adopted the Beijing Declaration, by which they reaffirmed their fundamental commitment to "the equal rights and inherent human dignity of women and men" (para. 8) and stated unequivocally that "women's rights are human rights" (para. 14). They also adopted the Beijing Platform for Action, in which they pledged to ensure equality and non-discrimination under the law and in practice (strategic objective I.1), and, more specifically, to "revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex and remove gender bias in the administration of justice" (para. 232 (d)). In 2000, during the five-year review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action by the General Assembly at its twenty-third special session, Governments committed to reviewing legislation with a view to striving to remove discriminatory provisions against women, preferably by 2005.

In its resolution 12/17 of 2 October 2009, the Human Rights Council requested the High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a thematic study on discrimination against women in law and in practice and on how the issue was being addressed throughout the United Nations human rights system. The request represented a continuation of the commitment made during the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993, to integrate women's human rights into the overall human rights system. The report (A/HRC/15/40) was presented to the Council at its fifteenth session in September 2010 and discussed during an interactive plenary panel debate. In the report, the High Commissioner concluded that, notwithstanding the work undertaken by United Nations human rights mechanisms, further measures were required to eliminate de jure and de facto inequalities (para. 63). One of the proposed measures was the establishment of a new special procedure of the Human Rights Council that would focus on laws and practices that discriminate against women (para. 57).

The Human Rights Council adopted, without a vote, resolution 15/23, which established the mandate of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice during its fifteenth session, on 1 October 2010. It is the second special procedure of the Human Rights Council dedicated to addressing women's human rights, complementing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, which was established in 1994 immediately following the World Conference on Human Rights.

In more than two decades of democratization projects worldwide, beginning with the breakdown of Latin American authoritarian regimes and the fall of the Berlin Wall up to the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa today, a wide range of efforts by States, citizens and organizations to address discrimination against women have been made as integral parts of bold and historic processes of the renewal of whole nations and regions. In other contexts, breakthroughs in law and practice occur as part of the responsiveness and accountability of States to an active citizenry committed to equality, non-discrimination and human rights for all women and men. The success or failure of efforts to effectively eliminate discrimination against women depends on how securely they are located within genuine processes of social and political transformation.

In the executive branch, only 17 women are Heads of State/Government. Women's representation in Governments is far lower than their representation in parliaments. Good practice where women occupy more than 40 per cent of Government positions were found in only a small number of States: six in the region of Western European and other States, two in sub-Saharan Africa and three in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Working Group notes that the obligation of States to secure women's equal representation includes the executive branch, and draws attention to the good practice in different regions which has demonstrated the feasibility of female-headed States and gender-balanced Governments.

For all women to have the capacity to exercise their right to equal and full participation in political and public life, States must provide a comprehensive legal framework to eliminate all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, gender-based violence in conflict situations and under current or past dictatorships, and violence directed at women who speak out and play leadership roles during times of war and peace. As articulated in the agreed conclusions of the fifty-seventh session of the Commission for the Status of Women, these laws must provide for multidisciplinary and gender-sensitive preventive and protective measures, such as emergency barring orders and protection orders; the investigation, submission for prosecution and appropriate punishment of perpetrators to end impunity; and support services that empower victims and survivors, as well as access to appropriate civil remedies and redress.

Stereotypes of women's capacities and roles that negatively affect women's effective participation in political and public life persist around the world. Despite evidence of women's important contributions in other fields of life, including in the labour market, stereotypes of female inadequacy in politics continue to be used as a basis for their marginalization and segregation in decision-making positions, with care and distributive tasks such as health and social welfare allocated to women, while men are assigned to economic and defence affairs, distorting the power structure and resource allocation.

Political parties, which function as gatekeepers in political decision-making, tend to be exclusionary towards women. Women also frequently lack access to political party funding and financial resources for their election bids and campaigns. Some political parties exclude women on religious ideological grounds. Both a national court and the European Court of Human Rights found that a confessional political party's exclusion of women from its parliamentary candidate list, because "differences in nature, talents and place in society means that, although women are not inferior to men as human beings, they should not be eligible for public office", was in violation of the State's Constitution and article 7 of the Convention.

Vulnerability and economic disadvantage for women are exacerbated by macroeconomic policies that increase inequalities and reduce social protection floors. This is clearly visible in periods of economic crisis, particularly where governments adopt austerity measures. Although the specific effects of the crisis differ by context, the overall picture is one of disparate impact on women, with deepening economic insecurity, an increase in precarious employment and a heavier burden of unpaid care work. Nonetheless, economic crisis merely accentuates existing structural economic disadvantages for women. Therefore, addressing the crisis provides an opportunity to tackle patterns of gender inequality and discrimination entrenched in the economic status quo and shape new gender equality policy responses.

In recent years, many countries have repealed or amended discriminatory nationality provisions to allow women to transfer nationality to their children, and, albeit to a lesser extent, to foreign husbands, or to reduce the occurrence of statelessness. Some countries have lifted their reservations to article 9 of the Convention, mostly in relation to women passing on nationality to children (art. 9, para. 2). Nationality laws which discriminate against women have been challenged in the courts of many countries and in international human rights mechanisms, resulting in a number of positive court decisions.

Women and girls belonging to minority communities, rural and indigenous women, migrant women, refugee women and those seeking asylum, and poor women face discriminatory practices in the implementation of laws on nationality and citizenship. They face prejudicial attitudes as well as structural obstacles which limit access to formal registration of births, marriage, residence and other citizenship documents as well as to relevant information on their rights as citizens. Women who are de facto heads of households, including those who have been abandoned by their husbands, whose divorce is not legally registered, or whose husbands have been forcibly disappeared and do not have death certificates for their husbands , are denied recognition of their status in official documents. Without such access, women from these communities become disproportionately vulnerable in exercising their full and equal rights as citizens.

No country has succeeded in closing the gender gap in all aspects of economic and social life. From her first days to her last, a woman's experiences will inevitably be marked by the expectations, beliefs, stereotypes, values, opportunities, roles and responsibilities associated with being female in her culture. While every girl is unique and every woman's life is different, in all societies they share certain aspects of quality of life as a result of living in a gendered and patriarchal reality. Gender discrimination and inequality manifest themselves at all stages of women's life cycle.

[The Working Group recommends that States:] Create the enabling conditions for public recognition and acceptance for women in positions of leadership and decision-making through public campaigns and educational programmes which are responsive to multicultural settings, including by: (i) Giving recognition to the diversity of women's engagements in political and public life; (ii) Providing a positive image of diverse women, including minority women, indigenous women, women with disabilities, and other historically marginalized women, in leadership and decision-making positions; (iii) Providing youth and children with a wide range of relevant role models and career paths for women, including through mentoring programmes for young women's participation in political and public life;

[The Working Group recommends that States:] Create a coherent institutional architecture for women's human rights and gender equality, including by: (i) Securing the gender balance and gender-responsive capacity of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and other independent monitoring bodies; (ii) Institutionalizing gender responsiveness as part of the international standards for effective NHRIs; (iii) Establishing well-resourced specialized national mechanisms for women's rights and gender equality;