Women demand action NOW Campaign

Constitutional & Legal Rights
– Endeavour to enshrine gender equality and equity in their constitutions and ensure that these are not compromised by any provisions, laws or practices
– Review, amend and repeal all discriminatory laws
– Abolish the minority status of women

Education and Training
– Enact Laws that promote equal access and retention in primary, secondary, tertiary and non-formal education in accordance with the Protocol on Education and Training and the Millennium Development Goals.
– Adopt and implement gender sensitive educational policies and programmes addressing gender stereotypes in education and gender-based violence, amongst others.

Gender Based Violence
– Enact and enforce legislation prohibiting all forms of gender-based violence.
– Ensure that laws on gender based violence provide for the comprehensive testing, treatment and care of survivors of sexual assault.
– Review and reform their criminal laws and procedures applicable to cases of sexual offences and gender based violence.
– Enact and adopt specific legislative provisions to prevent human trafficking and provide holistic services to the victims, with the aim of re-integrating them into society.
– Enact legislative provisions, and adopt and implement policies, strategies and programmes which define and prohibit sexual harassment in all spheres, and provide deterrent sanctions for perpetrators of sexual harassment.
– Adopt integrated approaches, including institutional cross sector structures, with the aim of reducing current levels of gender based violence by half by 2015.

HIV & AIDS
– Develop gender sensitive strategies to prevent new infections
– Ensure universal access to HIV and AIDS treatment for infected women, men, boys and girls.
– Develop and implement policies and programmes to ensure the appropriate recognition, of the work carried out by care-givers, the majority of which are women; the allocation of resources and psychological support for care-givers as well as promote the involvement of men in the care and support of People Living with AIDS.

Peace Building & Conflict Resolution
– Put in place measures to ensure that women have equal representation and participation in key decision-making positions in conflict resolution and peace building processes, in accordance with the UN Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security

Governance (Representation & Participation)
– Endeavour to ensure that 50 % of decision-making positions in all public and private sectors are held by women including through the use of affirmative action measures.

Productive Resources & employment, Economic Empowerment
– Ensure equal participation by women and men in policy formulation and implementation of economic policies.
– Conduct time use studies and adopt policy measures to ease the burden of the multiple roles played by women.
– Adopt policies and enact laws which ensure equal access, benefits and opportunities for women and men in trade and entrepreneurship, taking into account the contribution of women in the formal and informal sectors.
– Review national trade and entrepreneurship policies, to make them gender responsive.
– With regard to the affirmative action provisions of article 5, introduce measures to ensure that women benefit equally from economic opportunities, including those created through public procurement processes.
– Review all policies and laws that determine access to, control of, and benefit from, productive resources by women.
– Review, amend and enact laws and policies that ensure women and men have equal access to wage employment in all sectors of the economy.

Health
– Adopt and implement legislative frameworks, policies, programmes and services to enhance gender sensitive, appropriate and affordable health care.
– Reduce the maternal mortality ration by 75%
– Develop and implement policies and programmes to address the mental, sexual and reproductive health needs of women and men.
– Ensure the provision of hygiene and sanitary facilities and nutritional needs of women, including women in prison

Media Information and Communication
– Take measures to promote the equal representation of women in ownership of, and decision-making structures of the media, in accordance with article 12.1 that provides for equal representation of women in decision-making positions by 2015.