A/HRC/27/68 was not aware of any case that had been taken to court in relation to education, there had been some discussion on adapting to the changes in society to deal with the issue of structural discrimination. However, challenges remained in terms of moving from access to education to access to good quality education. 30. Monorama Biswas delivered her presentation entitled “Facilitating access to justice for people of African descent, especially legal aid for women”. She said that coordinated international efforts to disseminate greater knowledge, intercultural dialogue, tolerance and respect for diversity were essential tools for overcoming discrimination and hatred. She pointed out that the media played an important role in reflecting the diversity of multicultural societies and thus fighting racial discrimination, social injustice and related intolerance. She also pointed out that legal remedies must be made readily available, affordable and viable to people of African descent. 31. Maya Sahli delivered a presentation on constraints in women’s access to justice. She said that in most cases, while States had ratified a number of international agreements and regional conventions on issues relating to women, the difficulties women experienced in gaining access to justice were compounded by several factors, including a lack of education and awareness of their rights, a lack of legal assistance that was readily available to women and societal discrimination against women. The situation was even more troubling for women of African descent, even though relevant international norms existed, such as general recommendations No. 31 and No. 32 of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. She pointed out that it was crucial to focus on raising awareness of legal rights for women of African descent, and drew attention to the Quito Declaration on the enforcement and realization of economic, social, and cultural rights in Latin America and the Caribbean, which focused on that issue in relation to multiple forms of discrimination. Ms. Sahli added that racial and sexual violence, as well as harassment, deprived women of African descent from accessing justice. The problem was even worse for women of African descent in prisons in foreign countries where legal and consular services were unavailable. She recommended that legal assistance for women of African descent should be prioritized through awareness-raising, including the development of user-friendly, gender-sensitive information guides on the administration of justice. 32. A member of the secretariat of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women presented an overview of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, access to justice and women of African descent. She highlighted the salient provisions of the Convention and referred to a number of the Committee’s general recommendations, including those related to access to justice: general recommendations No. 19 (1992) on violence against women; No. 21 (1994) on equality in marriage and family relations; No. 28 (2010) on the core obligations of States parties under article 2 of the Convention; and No. 30 (2013) on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations. She informed the meeting that the Committee was in the process of drafting a new general recommendation specifically on access to justice, and provided specific examples of cases received by the Committee of relevance to women of African descent in terms of seeking access to justice. 33. During the interactive discussion, the representative of Brazil commended the presenters on the theme of women and access to justice, which was a priority for Brazil, and asked for examples of how to address the multiple forms of discrimination experienced by women of African descent in accessing justice. Ms. Sahli suggested guidelines that had been drawn up on women and access to justice in Malawi as one example, and also mentioned that guidelines of the International Law Commission could be useful reference material for States. The representative of Austria enquired whether the Working Group and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had developed any new joint general recommendations and whether the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination 9