E/CN.4/2002/73/Add.2 page 49 (i) Enacting legislation to eliminate customs and practices that are discriminatory and harmful to women, in particular female genital mutilation,269 and also female child marriage through the establishment of the age of majority to determine the marriageable age, and ensuring its effective implementation; (ii) Adopting penal laws to prohibit and criminalize other practices that violate the integrity and dignity of women, in particular ritual slavery; (iii) Adopting necessary measures to ensure that religious and cultural customs do not hamper the advancement of women, in particular in regard to discriminatory obligations imposed by marriage and at its dissolution. Especially in matters of divorce, women must be able to benefit from equal laws that authorize them to seek and obtain a divorce and from more secure financial provisions to facilitate the transition from economic dependence on their husband to the position of head of household; (iv) Establishing, where appropriate, a comprehensive system for compulsory registration of marriages and births in order to ensure protection for women and girls; (v) Repealing or amending laws and regulations that are unequal or infringe the rights of women in order to align them with international provisions concerning, in particular, abortion, property, nationality and civil status; (vi) Adopting laws to protect the economic and social rights of women, in particular their right to property ownership, since, as rightly observed, in cases where, for reasons relating to religious or customary practices, women are unable to own land, they are often excluded from decision-making within the family or in society;270 (vii) Adopting legislative measures that grant women preferential treatment in order to rectify imbalances created by discriminatory cultural or religious traditions, with a view to enabling them to enjoy the same rights as men. (c) Substitution and rationalization measures 199. With regard to traditional practices such as genital mutilation, CEDAW recommends to States and NGOs that they provide assistance in securing alternative sources of income to those performing such procedures, i.e. excision practitioners, who are often traditional birth attendants (A/53/354, para. 14). Shrines have been offered alternative methods of income generation in exchange for the release of women and girls held under the trokosi system of ritual enslavement and to help priests support themselves without the services of such women and girls.271 200. Also, States should, with the aid and support of international organizations, NGOs, the communities concerned and especially religious and cultural groups, adopt strategies with a view to replacing rituals affecting women and girls with socially relevant, alternative coming-of-age ceremonies, gift-giving and public celebration.272 In some cultures, rituals are already being circumvented, thereby sparing women cruel or humiliating treatment and adverse consequences.273 Thus, without losing their primary function, some of these rituals appear to have been rid of their cruelty and harmfulness to women’s health and dignity. Assistance, in