UNITED NATIONS • Forum on Minority Issues 30. Governments should invest in legislative and policy reform to ensure access to productive and decent work and the protection of labour rights for persons belonging to minorities. Governments should consider the establishment of a national task force, in which minorities participate, to review and devise strategies for improving employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for minorities. Minorities often live in regions where job opportunities are fewer and infrastructure for markets is weaker. In consultation with minority communities, Governments should consider creating incentives for private sector enterprise in such areas, including improvements to infrastructure facilities, tax incentives and Government-supported traineeship schemes targeted for minorities. This can be coupled with investment in public sector employment in these regions. 31. Governments should take all necessary steps to overcome barriers to minority women’s access to the labour market, including lack of professional education and formal qualifications, limited knowledge of the official language, low awareness of job opportunities, geographical location of jobs distant from the place of residence, lack of public infrastructure for childcare and financial difficulties. Cultural traditions may further discourage minority women’s involvement in employment. Minority women workers should be protected from mental, physical and sexual abuse by employers. Gender-based discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay must be eliminated. Programmes should be established to provide maternity leave, access to childcare facilities and special protection at work during pregnancy with respect to potentially harmful activities. 32. Labour inspection services should be reviewed and increased where necessary in regions and for occupations where there is a large minority presence. Access to existing complaints mechanisms for employment discrimination should be reviewed to ensure that minority members can effectively make complaints, and that the mechanisms are free, accessible and rapid. 33. Minorities are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage, low-skilled labour, including in the key informal economy sectors of domestic work, agricultural labour and street vending. Governments are urged to adopt and implement national legislation and policies that would extend protection of labour laws and social security to individuals working in the informal economy in both urban and rural areas. This could include support for workers’ organizations and participation of representatives from these sectors in planning and policy committees of government. Domestic workers, the majority of whom are women, would benefit from efforts by ILO to establish new international standards for domestic workers, and Governments are urged to ratify swiftly an expected international convention to this end.3 Street vendors should benefit from legislative and practical protection against harassment and changes in urban planning to provide safe and productive zones for the delivery of their services. National labour legislation in economic sectors where there is a 3 34 ILO is working towards the adoption in June 2011 of a new international standard on domestic workers. Compilation of Recommendations of the First Four Sessions 2008 to 2011