A/HRC/41/43 intellectual property, development, energy, environment, climate change, health, population, disarmament, peace and security; (b) States should address the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions at multilateral institutions; (c) States should encourage multilateral institutions to promote gender equality through their policies related to, for example, hiring, work environment and procurement. Guiding principle 11 21. Business enterprises have a responsibility to avoid infringing women’s human rights and to address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. To discharge this responsibility, business enterprises should contribute to achieving substantive gender equality and avoid exacerbating or reproducing existing discrimination against women throughout their operations. 22. Illustrative actions: (a) Business enterprises should create an enabling environment for women to have access to all opportunities on an equal basis with men. For example, sexual harassment, the gender pay gap, a lack of personal hygiene facilities and a work environment that is not menstruation friendly might discourage women from taking job opportunities and remaining in employment; (b) Business enterprises should take steps to support women workers in forming trade unions and taking up leadership positions in them; (c) Business enterprises should explore innovative ways to promote women’s rights and engage in advocacy to change discriminatory laws and social practices; (d) Business enterprises should find ways to offer loans and access to finance to women, including women who might not own property because of discriminatory laws or social practices; (e) Business enterprises should ensure that their land acquisition and compensation processes neither reinforce gender-discriminatory landownership practices nor adversely affect women’s livelihoods and subsistence; (f) Business enterprises should not perpetuate gender stereotypes or objectify and sexualize women’s bodies in any process, including sales and marketing, related to their products or services; (g) Business enterprises should take a range of measures (for example, affirmative action and professional development support) to ensure equal representation of women in the workforce at all levels, including on boards. They should also engage and incentivize their business partners to do the same; (h) Business enterprises should take effective measures to ensure that women are not harassed, bullied or intimidated in cyberspace and that they are able to use social media platforms without fear of discrimination or threat of violence; (i) Business enterprises should take steps to respect the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women, for example, by providing paid parental leave, offering flexible work hours or work-from-home options for new parents, and providing breastfeeding rooms at work. Business enterprises should also cease the practice of mandatory pregnancy testing. Guiding principle 12 23. In order to respect the internationally recognized rights of women, business enterprises should consider, among other instruments, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child relevant in all circumstances and throughout their operations. 24. 18 Illustrative actions: