Recommendation • Introduce legislative quotas for the empowerment of women Article 5: Sex Roles and Stereotyping Concluding Observation: Eradicating negative stereotypes through the training of parliamentarians and decision makers, disseminating the substance of CEDAW in the education system and media (CO2007/3, para 18) 20. Despite the rights and freedoms stipulated in the Constitution, traditional stereotypical attitudes with regard to the roles of women still exist in the society and are on the increase. This attitude towards women is fuelled by conservative beliefs spread at a concerning level.8 HRCM has information from its monitoring visits that many women believe that their roles in the society are to be submissive wives and in raising children. 21. Similarly, HRCM learned from the meetings held with police during atoll monitoring visits that some police officers’ initial belief is that the role of a woman is to raise children, take care of her family and be submissive to the husband. Also, they have the notion that violence against women is mostly the result of women not fulfilling their duty as submissive wives. Hence, training on DV Act for all law enforcement officials is crucial for providing protection for women. 22. HRCM observed that an attitude towards women empowerment is showing a negative trend.9 Most men and women in the atolls think that women are less intelligent than men by nature, and because of this, women are mostly seen in stereotypical roles such as housewives, small scale farming and sales girls in convenient shops, etc10. 23. In the civil service, women are mostly represented in areas such as education (72 percent), health (68 percent), manufacturing (65 percent) and agriculture (64 percent)11. 24. While strategies need to be developed to address the issue of stereotypical attitudes towards women based on conservative beliefs and societal norms, it is important to further study and understand the causes and social transformations that have led to these changes in attitude towards women. 25. Ministry of Law and Gender (MoLG) is currently conducting region based trainings and awareness sessions to women on business skills and on the rights guaranteed in the constitution as well as other relevant legislations. However, the ministry observed that Page 8 of 35