CEDAW/C/2009/WP.1/R (a) Lifting of discriminatory bans or restrictions on migration: States parties should repeal sex-specific bans and discriminatory restrictions on women’s migration on the basis of age, marital status, pregnancy or maternity status. They should lift restrictions that require women to get permission from their spouse or male guardian to obtain a passport or to travel (article 2 (f)); (b) Education, awareness-raising and training with standardized content: States parties should develop an appropriate education and awareness-raising programme in close consultation with concerned non-governmental organizations, gender and migration specialists, women workers with migration experience and reliable recruiting agencies. In that regard, States parties should (articles 3, 5, 10 and 14): (i) Deliver or facilitate free or affordable gender- and rights-based pre-departure information and training programmes that raise prospective women migrant workers’ awareness of potential exploitation, including: recommended contents of labour contracts, legal rights and entitlements in countries of employment, procedures for invoking formal and informal redress mechanisms, processes by which to obtain information about employers, cultural conditions in countries of destination, stress management, first aid and emergency measures, including emergency telephone numbers of home embassy, and services; information about safety in transit, including airport and airline orientations and information on general and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS prevention. Such training programmes should be targeted to women who are prospective migrant workers through an effective outreach programme and held in decentralized training venues so that they are accessible to women; (ii) Provide a list of authentic, reliable recruitment agencies and create a unified information system on available jobs abroad; (iii) Provide information on methods and procedures for migrating to work for women workers who wish to migrate independently of recruitment agencies; (iv) Require recruitment agencies to participate in awareness-raising and training programmes and sensitize them on the rights of women migrant workers, the forms of sex- and gender-based discrimination, the exploitation women could experience and responsibilities of agencies towards the women; (v) Promote community awareness-raising concerning the costs and benefits of all forms of migration for women and conduct cross-cultural awarenessraising activities addressed to the general public, which should highlight the risks, dangers and opportunities of migration, the entitlement of women to their earnings in the interest of ensuring their financial security and the need to maintain a balance between women’s familial responsibility and their responsibility to themselves. Such an awareness-raising progarmme could be carried out through formal and informal educational programmes; (vi) Encourage the media, information and communication sectors to contribute to awareness-raising on migration issues, including on the contributions women migrant workers make to the economy, women’s vulnerability to exploitation and discrimination and the various sites at which such exploitation occurs; 08-63558 9