A/HRC/4/9/Add.2 page 22 92. Hungary’s post-communist constitutional arrangements entrenched significant autonomy for municipal authorities in areas such as education. This has thwarted the national Government’s efforts to gain broad-based compliance with national policies on issues such as school desegregation. The Independent Expert noted that the Government must take effective steps to monitor and enforce compliance with national standards and fulfilment of rights of Roma at the municipal level. 93. The situation of multiple discrimination faced by Roma women presents specific challenges, including in the fields of education, employment, health care and housing, which require targeted attention and dedicated resources within the relevant ministries and local and regional authorities. Attention to Roma issues only within the context of a wider policy framework on gender and women’s rights issues will fail to meet the needs of Roma women or protect and promote their rights, freedoms and opportunities. The full and effective participation of Roma women is an essential component of Government and civil society efforts to address their issues. The early establishment of an advisory body on Roma women’s issues to the Ministry of Social and Labour Affairs should be considered as a means of gaining the views and experience of Roma women and assisting in the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of policy with regard to Roma women. 94. The Independent Expert highlighted particular concern over the situation of Roma in the fields of education and employment, as well as the need to comprehensively address the widespread societal discrimination and anti-Roma prejudice manifest in other sectors relating to social and economic rights. With respect to these sectors, the Independent Expert makes the following recommendations. Education 95. While the government policy with respect to desegregation must be commended, it is clear that the current approach based on financial incentives is grossly inadequate to match the non-Roma citizen resistance at the municipal level. (a) The State must devise effective measures to fulfil its obligation to guarantee compliance with its national anti-discrimination and equal treatment legislation, its Constitution and its international legal obligations to eliminate discrimination. It must put in place effective dissuasive sanctions that attach to relevant identified authorities if compliance is not realized. Consideration should be given to the withdrawal of funding from schools that fail to integrate according to their legal requirements; (b) The free-choice system for parents and the ability of schools to freely select or exclude students has been an engine to generate segregation in Hungary’s public schools. The Independent Expert welcomes recent initiatives to limit “free choice” in ways that would create and sustain a healthy balance of ethnic diversity in public schools and equal access to the highest possible quality education for all students. Such measures should be maintained and vigorously enforced;