A/HRC/49/81 mainstream minorities and their rights in national legislation, education and socioeconomic and regional development. 35. States must ensure that their legal and institutional frameworks can effectively address long-standing grievances of minorities, in order to ease tensions and prevent possible conflicts. Whenever necessary, affirmative actions should be introduced to ensure the participation of minorities in socioeconomic, political and cultural life on an equal footing with others. 36. States should elaborate and implement policy frameworks aimed at promoting equality, inclusion and the participation of minorities in socioeconomic, political and cultural areas, with a particular emphasis on the most marginalized minority groups, such as Roma and Dalits. 37. States must put in place effective mechanisms to protect minorities from systematic violence based on their identity and eradicate impunity around such violence. 38. States must ensure that minorities are included in the planning, decision-making and implementation processes of legal and institutional frameworks, and the meaningful participation of minority women, girls and youth should be safeguarded at all levels. 39. States should ensure that the design and implementation of legal and institutional frameworks are accompanied by educational programmes and awareness-raising campaigns to address deep-rooted prejudice and biases in relation to minority groups within society. 40. States should ensure the collection of data disaggregated by ethnicity, religion, language, race and other relevant characteristics to enable legislators and policymakers to establish targeted public policies and programmes for minorities. 41. When it comes to legal and institutional frameworks for minority protection, the unique position and conditions of post-colonial States and minorities therein must be acknowledged by States, the United Nations, regional organizations and civil society, as a handful of countries at risk of violent conflicts are post-colonial States. 42. States are encouraged to consider various forms of internal self-determination and self-governance for minority groups, including arrangements for territorial autonomy as an effective tool for conflict prevention; good practices in this regard should be widely exchanged and studied. 43. When autonomy arrangements are being designed, States are encouraged to ensure financial autonomy and regulate the balance of power between different linguistic groups in the territory concerned. 44. Whenever peace agreements are signed, States must ensure that minority issues are mainstreamed in the agreements by: (a) Including relevant minority rights provisions; (b) Including minority women in peace processes; (c) Ensuring that where religion is a decisive factor, freedom of religion or belief and prohibition on the grounds of religion are respected, including other human rights of religious minorities, which should be an essential part of conflict prevention, resolution, transformation and reconciliation. 45. The Security Council should take firm action to protect populations, including minorities, and hold perpetrators accountable when States fail to comply with their international human rights obligations with regard to the protection of their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. V. Recommendations to focus on the rights of minorities and ensure effective early prevention of conflicts 46. 6 States should develop and implement early warning systems, by: