A/HRC/19/71 women themselves and women’s organizations. Minority women frequently work on eradicating harmful practices and their efforts should be supported. The rights of minority women to equality before the law and to non-discrimination must be given priority over long-standing harmful practices. Governments should ensure that any prohibition of minority practices, that are not per se harmful, be based on reasonable and objective grounds, proportionate to the aims pursued, and not result in an indiscriminate attack on minority cultures. Practices that lead to and/or perpetuate gender inequality or violate the rights of individual women in certain minority communities should be rectified, including through dialogue directly with the communities concerned and with the effective participation of minority women. 32. Governments should allow full access to regions where minorities, and minority women in particular, predominantly live during country visits by special procedures as well as to international organizations and the media, in order for the latter to be able to collect information directly from minority women on their experiences and bring more visibility to the situation of minority women and the challenges they face. B. National human rights institutions 33. National human rights institutions should ensure that the full spectrum of views, issues and challenges and the diversity of their respective societies are reflected in their activities and programmes. They should consider specific mechanisms in their secretariat to address minority issues, for instance, a focal point on gender and discrimination, with particular attention paid to issues relevant to minority women. 34. National human rights institutions should design a programme of work to analyse the implementation of non-discrimination legislation for minority women. They should analyse domestic legislation and customary laws that are discriminatory towards minority women and recommend policy and legislative reforms where appropriate. They should also assist in developing programmes to enhance the implementation of non-discrimination legislation, including with regard to minority women’s access to education and vocational training, employment, labour rights, social security, financial services and land and property rights. 35. National human rights institutions should support Government actors in such areas as the training of public officials, the design and implementation of gender and racial equality projects, and ensuring access to justice for minority women. They should also act on behalf of minority women and facilitate their access to justice. 36. In the design of promotional and educational human rights material and programmes, national human rights institutions should ensure that they mainstream not only a gender perspective but also a minority rights focus, with particular attention to the specific situation of women who are members of the minority groups in society. C. Civil society 37. International and national institutions and non-governmental organizations working on women’s rights should review the extent to which they integrate minority issues into their work, with a view to strengthening their attention to the issues of women belonging to minorities. Equally, those working on minority rights and issues of racial discrimination should ensure that they integrate a gender perspective into their work and programmes. Organizations should consider developing joint programmes to ensure that issues of minority women and intersectional discrimination are made visible and addressed in their work. 8