A/HRC/41/33/Add.2 for women’s organizations and covering areas such as sexuality education and women’s reproductive health. However, the Working Group learned that there is considerable disparity in terms of local governments’ engagement in gender equality across the different regions of the country. 15. The Working Group stresses that gender equality and women’s empowerment need to be addressed in a comprehensive manner both as a stand-alone goal and as cross-cutting concepts across all other development goals. The limited understanding of equality as equal treatment and the lack of explicit focus on addressing women’s disadvantage in society undermine the potential for developing targeted gender equality measures. Therefore, the legal, policy and institutional framework should be strengthened, and particular attention should be paid to women who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, such as minority and migrant women, particularly Roma, women with disabilities, rural women, sex workers and lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women. IV. Political and public life A. Political participation and representation in public institutions 16. The Working Group welcomes the improvements in the political representation of women resulting from the adoption of the Electoral Code in 2011, which requires that at least 35 per cent of candidates of either sex are represented in political party lists in proportional elections at the European, national and local levels. Significantly, the Act contains enforcement measures, namely, electoral lists not meeting the requirement will not be registered. 17. The most recent local elections in October 2018 saw progress in women’s representation, from 24 per cent in 2010 to 30 per cent in 2018. However, progress in parliament has been more limited. While there was a significant increase in women candidates (from 23 per cent in 2007 to 42 per cent in 2011 and 2015), this only led to a 4 per cent increase in membership of the Sejm (the lower chamber of parliament) in each of the two elections, partly due to the generally low places women candidates occupied in the list.4 Poland ranks fifty-fifth out of 193 countries for women’s representation in the national parliament, which stands close to the regional average in Europe (28.6 per cent) and above the world average (24.3 per cent).5 18. The Act, however, does not apply to elections to the Senate, which are run on the basis of single-member constituencies. Currently, only 14 per cent of senators are women, which is significantly below the world average of 24.1 per cent and the regional average of 27.2 per cent. 6 While Poland has great potential to lead the world in women’s political representation, in view of its long history of women’s participation in political and public life, women do not yet fully occupy their rightful place at the highest level of political representation. 19. At 69.7 per cent, women are systematically well represented in the public administration and institutions across sectors, with the exception of the Foreign Service. According to data provided by the Government, an overwhelming majority of supporting positions are occupied by women, though women also occupy half of the senior positions. 20. Currently, there are 6 women cabinet members out of 23. In the Foreign Service, the number of women in senior positions has gradually increased, though it is still much lower in comparison with men (e.g., only 29.3 per cent of heads of missions are women). In the judiciary, women are well represented, including as presidents of the courts. However, at the most senior level, their representation drops significantly. The current Constitutional 4 5 6 Women’s representation increased from 20.4 per cent in 2007 to 23.9 per cent in 2011 and 27.1 per cent in 2015. http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm. Ibid. 5