• • • The need to address the impact of early marriages and early pregnancy on access to education for some minority girls. The impact of conflict on access to education for some minority girls and women, including with regard to their freedom of movement and in terms of ensuring the protection of girls living in conflict zones. The gap in some situation between languages used in schools and that used at home which can represent an obstacle for minority girls’ access to education. Item IV. Minority women and effective political participation Under this agenda item, the discussion identified the conditions required to guarantee the effective political participation of minority women, as well as remaining obstacles, concrete steps and existing measures aimed at increasing the political participation of minority women. Ms. Mercedes Barquet, member of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, first gave a brief overview of the mandate of the Working Group which was established by the Human Rights Council in October 2010 and mandated inter alia to prepare a compendium of best practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women or are discriminatory to women in terms of implementation or impact. She indicated that the Working Group intends to build on existing standards and initiatives developed by other stakeholders which would include the wealth of concrete recommendations that have emanated from the Forum. The intersection of various grounds of discrimination will be a cross-cutting perspective in all the work carried out and particular attention will be given to specific groups of women, including women belonging to minorities. In terms of strategies for empowering minority women’s political participation and combating blatant discrimination in this field, she noted that the use of temporary special measures is provided for and recommended by international human rights law, supported by empirical research and that gender quotas have also emerged as a tool that can be effective to redress women’s exclusion from political participation and to ensure their presence in formal structure of politics. However, gender quotas need to be accompanied by other measures to ensure that barriers to equality are overcome, including those resulting from illiteracy, language, poverty and impediments to women’s freedom of movement. Ms. Sonu Rani Das gave a presentation on the political participation of Dalit women in Bangladesh indicating that they were faced with a lot of problems, both inside as well as outside their communities. She indicated that 99 per cent of Dalit women were not educated and were not aware of their rights. Obstacles to access to education included poverty. She concluded with recommendations aimed at increasing the political participation of Dalit women and engaging them, including: increase empowerment and mobility of Dalit women and their access to justice; increase admission of Dalit girls into schools and universities, and make efforts to help them stay in school; more opportunities 12