Actions to be taken at the national level - by governments

Set and encourage the use of explicit short- and long-term time-bound targets or measurable goals, including, where appropriate, quotas, to promote progress towards gender balance, including women's equal access to and full participation on a basis of equality with men in all areas and at all levels of public life.

Address the barriers faced by women, particularly by indigenous and other marginalised women, in accessing and participating in politics and decision-making.

Ensure policies that guarantee equal access to education and elimination of gender disparities in education.

Support the implementation of plans and programmes of action to ensure quality education and improved enrolment retention rates for boys and girls and the elimination of gender discrimination and gender stereotypes in educational curricula and materials, as well as in the process of education.

Accelerate action and strengthen political commitment to close the gender gap in primary and secondary education by 2005 and to ensure free compulsory and universal primary education for both girls and boys by 2015 and eliminate policies that have been proven to worsen and perpetuate the gap.

back to top

Develop a gender-sensitive curriculum for all educational levels.

Design and implement policies that promote and protect women's enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and create an environment that does not tolerate violations of the rights of women and girls.

Create and maintain a non-discriminatory and gender-sensitive legal environment by reviewing legislation with the view to striving to remove discriminatory provisions as soon as possible.

Ratify CEDAW, limit the extent of any reservations to it, and withdraw reservations that are contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention or otherwise incompatible with international treaty law.

Consider signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to CEDAW.

Consider signing and ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Develop, review and implement laws and procedures to prohibit and eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls.

back to top

Take measures, including programmes and policies, to ensure that the role of women in procreation is not used as a basis for discrimination nor restricts the full participation of women in society

Ensure that national legislative and administrative reform processes promote women's rights and take measures to promote and implement those rights through women's equal access to and control over economic resources.

Mainstream a gender perspective into national immigration and asylum policies, regulations and practices.

Take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination and violence against women and girls by any person, organisation or enterprise.

Take necessary measures for the private sector and educational establishments to facilitate and strengthen compliance with non-discriminatory legislation.

As a matter of priority, review and revise legislation with a view to introducing effective legislation, including on violence against women, and take other necessary measures to ensure that all women and girls are protected against all forms of physical, psychological and sexual violence, and are provided recourse to justice.

Prosecute the perpetrators of all forms of violence against women and girls, sentence them appropriately, introduce actions to help perpetrators break the cycle of violence and provide avenues for redress to victims.

Treat all forms of violence against women and girls of all ages as a criminal offence punishable by law.

Establish legislation and/or strengthen appropriate mechanisms to handle criminal matters relating to all forms of domestic violence.

Develop, adopt and fully implement laws and other measures to eradicate harmful customary or traditional practices which are violations of the human rights of women and girls.

Continue to undertake research to develop a better understanding of the root causes of all forms of violence against women in order to design programmes and take measures towards eliminating those forms of violence.

Take measures to address through policies and programmes, racism and racially motivated violence against women and girls.

Take concrete steps to address the impact of violence on indigenous women.

back to top

Promote women's and girls' mental well-being, integrate mental health services into primary health-care systems, develop gender-sensitive supportive programmes and train health workers to recognise gender-based violence and provide care for girls and women of all ages who have experienced any form of violence.

Adopt and promote a holistic approach to respond to all forms of violence and abuse against all girls and women.

Approve and promote a holistic approach to combat violence against women during all their life cycle and circumstances.

Take appropriate measures to address the root factors, including external factors, that encourage trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialised sex.

Devise, enforce and strengthen effective measures to combat and eliminate all forms of trafficking in women and girls through a comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy consisting of legislation, prevention, information exchange, assistance and protection for and reintegration of the victims and prosecution of all the offenders involved.

Consider preventing, within the legal framework and in accordance with national policies, victims of trafficking, in particular women and girls, from being prosecuted for their illegal entry or residence, taking into account that they are victims of exploitation.

Consider setting up or strengthening a national co-ordinating mechanism to encourage the exchange of information and to report on data, root causes, factors and trends in violence against women.

Provide protection and support to women and their respective families and develop and strengthen policies to support family security.

Consider adopting national legislation to protect the knowledge, innovations and practices of women in indigenous and local communities relating to traditional medicines, biodiversity and indigenous technologies.

Adapt environmental and agricultural policies and mechanisms, when necessary, to incorporate a gender perspective, and in co-operation with civil society, support farmers, particularly women farmers and those living in rural areas, with education and training programmes.

Adopt policies and implement measures to address the gender aspects of emerging and continued health challenges such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other diseases having a disproportionate impact on women's health.

Ensure that the reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality is a health sector priority and that women have ready access to essential obstetric care, well-equipped and adequately staffed maternal health-care services, skilled attendance at delivery, emergency obstetric care, effective referral and transport to higher levels of care when necessary, post-partum care and family planning in order to promote safe motherhood, and give priority attention to measures to prevent, detect and treat breast, cervical and ovarian cancer and osteoporosis, and sexually transmitted infections.

Take measures to meet the unmet needs in good quality family planning services and in contraception.

Collect and disseminate updated and reliable data on mortality and morbidity of women and conduct further research regarding how social and economic factors affect the health of girls and women of all ages, as well as research about the provision of health-care services to girls and women, the patterns of use of such services and the value of disease prevention and health promotion programmes for women.

Ensure universal and equal access for women and men, throughout the life-cycle, to social services related to health care, including education, clean water and safe sanitation, nutrition, food security and health education programmes.

Ensure the provision of safe working conditions for health-care workers.

Adopt, enact, review, revise and implement health legislation, policies and programmes, in consultation with women's organisations and other actors of civil society, and allocate the necessary budgetary resources to ensure the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health for women.

Eliminate discrimination against all women and girls in access to health information, education and health care and health services.

Provide for the reproductive health of all women where reproductive health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. Implicit in this is the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice and the right of access to appropriate health-care services. The promotion of the responsible exercise of the right of reproductive freedom for all people should be the fundamental basis for government- and community-supported policies and programmes in the area of reproductive health.

Design and implement programmes to encourage and enable men to adopt safe and responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour, and to effectively use methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

back to top

Take all appropriate measures to eliminate harmful, medically unnecessary or coercive medical interventions as well as inappropriate medication and overmedication of women and ensure that all women are properly informed of their options, including likely benefits and potential side effects, by properly trained personnel.

Adopt measures to ensure non-discrimination against and respect for the privacy of those living with HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections, including women and young people, so that they are not denied the information needed to prevent further transmission of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases and are able to access treatment and care services without fear of stigmatisation, discrimination or violence.

Reduce the recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family-planning services which focus on prevention of unwanted pregnancies. Women who have unwanted pregnancies should have ready access to reliable information and compassionate counselling. In circumstances where abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe. In all cases, women should have access to quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion. Post-abortion counselling, education and family-planning services should be offered promptly, which will also help to avoid repeat abortions.

Consider reviewing laws containing punitive measures against women who have undergone illegal abortions.

Promote and improve comprehensive gender-specific tobacco prevention and control strategies for all women, particularly adolescent girls and pregnant women, which would include education, prevention and cessation programmes and services, and the reduction of people's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and support the development of the World Health Organisation international framework convention for tobacco control.

back to top

Promote or improve information programmes and measures including treatment for the elimination of the increasing substance abuse among women and adolescent girls, including information campaigns about the risks to health and other consequences and its impact on families.

Mainstream a gender perspective into key macroeconomic and social development policies and national development programmes.

Incorporate a gender perspective into the design, development, adoption and execution of all budgetary processes in order to promote equitable, effective and appropriate resource allocation and establish adequate budgetary allocations to support gender equality and development programmes that enhance women's empowerment and develop the necessary analytical and methodological tools and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation.

Increase and effectively utilise financial and other resources in the social sector, particularly in education and health, to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment as a central strategy for addressing development and poverty eradication.

Strive to reduce the disproportionate presence of women living in poverty by implementing national poverty eradication programmes with a focus on a gender perspective and the empowerment of women.

Undertake socio-economic policies that promote sustainable development and support and ensure poverty eradication programmes, especially for women, by providing skills training, equal access to and control over resources, finance, credit, including microcredit, information and technology, and equal access to markets.

Create and ensure access to social protection systems, taking into account the specific needs of all women living in poverty, demographic changes and changes in society, to provide safeguards against the uncertainties and changes in conditions of work associated with globalisation, and strive to ensure that new, flexible and emerging forms of work are adequately covered by social protection.

Continue to review, modify and implement macroeconomic and social policies and programmes through an analysis from a gender perspective of those related to structural adjustment and external debt problems, in order to ensure women's equal access to resources and universal access to basic social services.

Facilitate employment for women through promotion of adequate social protection, simplification of administrative procedures, removal of fiscal obstacles, access to risk capital, credit schemes, microcredit and other funding and facilitating the establishment of microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Establish or reinforce existing institutional mechanisms at all levels to work with national machineries to strengthen societal support for gender equality, in co-operation with civil society, particularly women's NGOs.

Take action at the highest levels for the continued advancement of women, in particular by strengthening national machineries to mainstream the gender perspective.

back to top

Provide national machineries with the necessary human and financial resources, including through exploring innovative funding schemes, so that gender mainstreaming is integrated into all policies, programmes and projects.

Consider establishing effective commissions or other institutions to promote equal opportunities.

Strengthen efforts to fully implement national action plans developed for the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and, when necessary, adjust or develop national plans for the future.

Ensure that the design of all government information policies and strategies is gender-sensitive.

Provide national statistical offices with institutional and financial support in order to collect, compile and disseminate data disaggregated by sex, age and other factors in formats that are accessible to the public and to policy makers for gender-based analysis, monitoring and impact assessment, and support new work to develop statistics and indicators, especially in areas where information is particularly lacking.

Regularly compile and publish crime statistics, and monitor trends in law enforcement concerning violations of the rights of women and girls to increase awareness in order to develop more effective policies.

Develop national capacity to undertake policy-oriented and gender-related research and impact studies by universities and national research/training institutes to enable gender-specific knowledge-based policy-making.

back to top

Back to Contents
[ Previous | Next ]