A/HRC/15/41 or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or any other status”.26 D. • Recommend, further to improving regulation, taking special measures to ensure de facto equality and accountability mechanisms. Such special measures include “the full span of legislative, executive, administrative, budgetary and regulatory instruments at every level in the State apparatus, as well as plans, policies, programmes and preferential regimes in areas such as employment, housing, education, culture and participation in public life for disfavoured groups, devised and implemented on the basis of such instruments.”27 • Recommend promoting awareness-raising measures to eliminate negative stigma against persons living in extreme poverty, in particular measures to sensitize public and private service delivery professionals fostering respect for the rights and dignity of persons living in extreme poverty. Promoting the advancement of women and the elimination of genderbased discrimination 45. Gender inequality causes and perpetuates poverty. At the same time, improving the situation of women is a key element for sustainable development.28 Gender-based discrimination limits women’s opportunities to access education, decent work opportunities, land, ownership, credit, inheritance and other economic resources, increasing their likelihood of living in extreme poverty.29 Women face multiple and aggravated forms of discrimination due to their age, ethnicity, race, health or other status. 46. 26 27 28 29 30 A revised version of the draft guiding principles should: • Emphasize that poverty amongst women is exacerbated by the multifaceted forms of discrimination they endure. • Recall the obligations of States to achieve de jure and de facto equality between men and women. • Recommend measures to ensure that women have full and equal legal capacity to own, control, administer and alienate economic resources such as land, credit and inheritance. • Recommend measures to ensure that women have equal access to social services, including health, education, equal access to the labour market and equality between the sexes in marriage and family relations, ensuring that women’s decision-making is not subject to male authority.30 • Recommend measures to promote the equal distribution of food and other resources within the household. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 20, para. 15. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, general comment No. 32, para. 13. Overseas Development Institute, Briefing Paper, “Gender and the MDGs”, 2008. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report — Gender and Human Development, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1995). Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 21 (1994) on equality in marriage and family relations. 11