employment, education and health, emphasizing the need for quality data and information. The economic, social and cultural rights of minority women must be interpreted and implemented in a manner that ensures them equal exercise of their rights. CEDAW has called on States parties to integrate attention to women from minority groups into national policies, plans and programmes, and to implement specific measures to eliminate discrimination against them. States should place high priority on the reduction of the illiteracy rate of women including through the adoption of temporary special measures. CEDAW has often expressed concern about minority women being employed in lower-paid and lower-skilled work with very little emphasis on their right to develop a career. The Committee is concerned about high maternal and infant mortality rates and the high fertility rate, especially among ethnic minorities, and the lack of healthcare facilities. The Committee has addressed the impoverished living conditions of minority women, poor health, inadequate housing and access to clean water, low schoolcompletion rates and high rates of violence. CEDAW urges Governments to take proactive measures, including awareness-raising, to sensitize public opinion on minority women’s issues. She pointed to the need for robust and concerted efforts to address the plight of minority women, underlining that there is room for better coordination. Ms. Heisoo Shin, member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), first highlighted that, in addition to the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights contains many provisions which are critical to the protection of the rights of minority women in the areas of economic, social and cultural rights. The Committee always raises the issues faced by minority people in a given country under consideration, which include issues such as higher rate of unemployment, poverty, land ownership and titling, forced eviction and shortage of housing or cultural heritage at risk due to development projects. She then mentioned that the main challenge is to educate minority women about their rights and that education should not be limited to girls’ education in schools or literacy classes for adult women but should also be about their basic human rights in economic, social and cultural areas. She concluded by calling on all minority women to take the ICESCR into their hands and use it as a tool to protect and promote their rights, while at the same time recognizing the need for the Committee itself to pay closer attention to the situation of minority women and to urge governments and other stakeholders to take measures to eliminate discrimination and to stop violation of minority women’s rights. Ms. Atieno Jennipher Kere, from the Women in Fishing Industry Programme in Kenya, made a presentation on “Social mobilization and economic empowerment for the minority widows of Mt. Elgon-Kenya”. She noted a social rehabilitation project aimed at nearly three hundred Mt. Elgon widows/minority women from the Ogiek minority group, most of whom had lost their spouses to war, as the first step to reconstructing their lives socially and economically. She explained how women suffered the most, including from internal displacement and loss of both shelter and livelihood, and that psycho-social 16