CEDAW/C/GC/36 spreading of rumours, threats, disclosure of confidential information, images/videos, revenge porn, sexual harassment and sexual advances often from strangers. 71. Cyber-bullying has a wide variety of effects on adolescent girls including: emotional effects which can be mild or extreme; feelings of being unsafe and frightened; and, in some instances induced not only suicidal thoughts but actual suicides. 72. The Committee recommends that although cyber-bullying is not always rooted in the school, States parties undertake the following measures in schools to protect girls: a) alert parents to the spread of this phenomenon and the impacts that it can have on girls; b) develop comprehensive programmes that inform teachers, students and parents on the forms that cyber-bullying can take and its potential impacts as well as provide counselling and support for student victims of cyber-bullying; c) put in place policies that ensure that technologies available in schools are not used for the purpose of cyber-bullying and monitor their implementation; d) establish multiple and readily accessible channels that students can use to report such incidents by establishing peer and teacher counselling services, hotspots in schools and hotlines for anonymous reporting; e) inform girls of the consequences of engaging in such behaviour to their health and well-being as well as sanctions that may be applied; f) enact legislation that defines and penalises ICT-based and online harassment of women and girls in all its forms. Equitable female participation in management structures 73. The gender regime evident in educational institutions negatively impacts female staff, particularly at the secondary and tertiary levels of education systems. This is most evident in terms of their limited upward mobility in the profession and their transition to decisionmaking positions. In spite of teaching being a feminized profession, universally there is a disproportionately low representation of females in senior and top management positions at all levels of education. 74. Several factors account for the under-representation of women in leadership and decision-making positions at all levels of education. These include: limited access to education, especially opportunities for higher education for those teaching at the lower levels; discriminatory appointment and promotion practices; family attitudes; career interruptions; cultural stereotyping; alienation from the male culture of networking and patronage and continued resistance to including women in management positions.13 75. The Committee recommends that States parties institute the following measures to close the gender gap in leadership positions at all levels of education to ensure that the discrimination women face in this regard is eliminated: a) increase women’s professional mobility in institutions of higher learning by providing grants and/or scholarships to enable them to acquire advanced postgraduate degrees and introduce incentives/schemes to retain them; b) strengthen efforts to increase the number of females in leadership positions at all levels of education especially university professors in all fields, through the use of measures, including temporary special measures in accordance with article 4, paragraph 1, CEDAW and the GR 25; c) review appointment and promotion procedures and remove any discriminatory provisions which act as barriers to women’s equal participation in leadership positions in educational institutions and address discriminatory practices in appointments and promotions; 13 UNESCO http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/wche/principal/women.html 17