CEDAW/C/SR.37 English Page 9 (Ms. Salerna) R.-landa, and she hoped that the Comntittee would be given more information concerning family planning in that country. Lastly, the report had stated that under the Constitution, married women exercising a profession or trade could join professional organizations~ she would like to know whether that provision also applied to single women. 29. Ms. SMITH thanked the representative of R.-landa for her presentation of the report. Sle noted that the Constitution specified the quality of the sexes and that there was an article explicitly guaranteeing the right of all citizens to work and to enjoy equitable and satisfactory working conditions. However, that did not indicate what the real situation of women in the country was. There was also information concerning the penalties imposed for certain crimes, but there were no data concerning the rules that governed family relations, marriage and property. It was well known that in many African countries three parallel legal systems coexisted·. traditional practices, the remnants of the colonial system and the new systems established after independence. Since that situation affected the norms relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance, she would be grateful for some explanation of how those systems were reconciled to prevent women from being victimized. S1e would also be grateful if the committee were given more information concerning the rights of women in rural areas, especially in matters of property, land use, participation in co-operatives and access to agricultural credit institutions. W'lat opportunities did women have to exercise those rights in practice? It would also be of interest to find out whether men and women had different economies. For example, if a man had cash crops, did the woman receive part of the profits? How was labour divided between rnen and women in rural areas? With regard to education, she would like to know whether girls did in practice have access to education equal to that of boys. If there were any statistical data on that question, she would be grateful for an indication of what percentage of heads of household were women. Also, since many men were migrant workers in neighbouring countries, it would be desirable to clarify what the legal definition of abandonment was. 30. Ms. VELIZ DE VILLALVILLA commended the representative of R.-landa for her introduction, which had given the Committee a more complete picture of the status of women in that country. It had been somewhat difficult to study the report o f R.-landa since it contained only data pertaining to some articles of the Convention. W"lile it was true that the report had been prepared before the Committee had drawn up its guidelines on the matter, it would have been useful if the report had been supplemented by an annex such as other countries had provided. The statement by the representative of R</anda showed that the Government had worked to promote women's participation in development and to achieve equality between men and women. Nevertheless, the couunittee ought to be provided with some additional data , such as data on the overall percentage of illiterate persons in the country and the percentage of illiterate women and on adult education programmes to eliminate illiteracy. S1e would be interested to know the sectors of production in which women were primarily involved, women's age at retirement and whether that age was the same as the age for men. S1e also wished to have additional inf ormation abo ut legislation relating to the family and nationality. Since the country was primarily agricultural, she would like to have more information about the status of rural women, the establishme nt of co-operatives and s ystems of self-help and peasant women's access to health systems. I . ..