CEDAW/C/77/D/143/2019 promote patients’ rights, the municipalities and the city of Skopje have established a standing commission on the promotion of patients’ rights pursuant to the provisions governing local self-government. Furthermore, the State party refers also to the provisions of the Law on Health Insurance. 4.4 The State party submits that, in addition to the legal regulations, for the purpose of improving the availability and quality of health care for vulnerable categories of citizens, the Ministry of Health establishes specific programmes. It envisages measures and activities aimed at raising the awareness of the population about healthy lifestyles and proper health behaviour in the preconception, antenatal, postnatal and breastfeeding periods, and at improving the quality and equality of acces s to healthcare services for mothers and children from vulnerable categories, such as Roma women and women in rural areas. 4.5 As part of the implementation of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005 –2015 and the Strategy for the Roma, in 2012, the Ministry of Health started a project entitled “Roma health mediators”, in cooperation with the civil society sector. The project is aimed at overcoming barriers in communication between the Roma population and health-care professionals. Through field visits, persons or families without access to health care are identified and informed about access to health care and health insurance, and about the availability of free health -care services envisaged by the Ministry to improve the health status of the Roma population. Th e health mediators are based in the relevant municipality health-care centres so that they are easily accessible to the population and to the health-care professionals. The Ministry undertakes such activities to prevent any type of discrimination on the gr ounds of race or any other grounds and condemns such discrimination. Authors’ comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits 5.1 The authors provided their comments on 9 November 2019. They note that the State party does not object to the admissibility of the communication or to the facts, the claims of discrimination suffered or the lack of effective protection against such discrimination. Instead, the State party’s reply provides a brief overview of the legal framework on prevention of and protection against discrimination and the laws related to health protection and patients’ rights. 5.2 According to the authors, the State party has an obligation to address all aspects of its obligations under the Convention. They recognize that the adoption of the Law on Prevention of and Protection against Discrimination of 2019 is a significant step towards combating discrimination against women. However, they argue that the State party failed to present the manner in which it secures effective implementation of the law in order to eliminate unequal treatment of women, including the most marginalized. Moreover, to date, the parliament has still not elected the members of the commission for prevention and protection against discrimination, which is supposed to be an independent professional body for promoting equality and preventing discrimination and to serve as an effective mechanism for protection against discrimination. 5.3 The authors submit that the State party did not describe steps directly aimed at eliminating customary and all other practices that are prejudicial to women and perpetuate the notion of their inferiority and stereotyped roles of women and men, which violates their rights to sexual and reproductive health. Moreover, no significant progress has been made, at the national or local level, in eliminating prejudices towards and stereotypes surrounding Roma people, in particular those affecting Roma women. 5.4 Apart from the training of professionals, including judges and law yers, on the new aspects of the Law on Prevention of and Protection against Discrimination, the State party failed to fulfil its obligation under the Convention to take a variety of steps 20-16465 5/10