UNITED NATIONS • Forum on Minority Issues 3. National human rights institutions 76. National human rights institutions should consider developing outreach programmes and civic education aimed at increasing the effective political participation of women belonging to minorities. 4. Civil society 77. Civil society should seek to play a role in breaking down the barriers preventing the effective political participation of minority women, including by drawing on different approaches, such as capacity-building and training. 78. Civil society should develop civic education projects targeted at minority and majority communities, highlighting a citizen’s rights, roles and responsibilities, and train young women belonging to minorities in the skills of negotiation, communication, advocacy, policymaking and governance. 79. Support should be given to minority women’s organizations to elevate their status in decision-making in general and also to increase their participation in traditional decision-making structures that are all too often male-dominated. It is also necessary to involve male leaders in activities undertaken to increase the participation of minority women and develop their leadership skills in order to also help in changing men’s perceptions of these women in certain societies. C. Effective participation in economic, social and cultural life 80. Minority women are often restricted in their access to the labour market or at higher risk of unemployment. Barriers to minority women’s access to labour markets include lack of education, lack of awareness of job opportunities, remoteness of the work location, lack of public infrastructure for child care, cultural traditions and gendered societal roles, gender- and minority-based discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay. Many working minority women are involved in low-income earning activities, frequently in the informal sector. In such informal labour markets, women are often excluded from basic labour protection and employed under not only poor but also insecure, difficult, harmful or even dangerous working conditions. The full and effective participation of minority women in economic life is a prerequisite for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, especially with regard to Goal 1, target 1 (a), on halving extreme poverty, and target 1 (b), on the achievement of full, productive and decent work for all, and with regard to Goal 3, on the promotion of gender equality. 81. In some societies, minority women experience even more complex burdens of poverty, ethnic, religious or descent-based prejudice and gender-based restrictions that can frequently result in increased challenges relating to the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Access to and use and ownership of 60 Compilation of Recommendations of the First Four Sessions 2008 to 2011