A/HRC/8/50 Page 14 inequalities between men and women could still exist owing to the weight of tradition and illiteracy among women. With regard to the lack of social protection for workers in the informal sector, he drew attention to the fact that an act of 1999 had introduced voluntary coverage under some insurance schemes, particularly family allowances, health and old-age insurance. Concerning trafficking in children, he said that the main difficulties stemmed from the cross-border nature of that phenomenon. Community surveillance units were intended to combat trafficking in children by calling on key local figures to bring their influence to bear and to prevent children from leaving their village and going to neighbouring countries. As far as prisons were concerned, he said that there were detention centres for women and children and that special areas for women and children had been created in all Malian prisons. With regard to freedom of expression and opinion, he said that, every year since 1996, Mali had allocated assistance in the amount of 200 million CFA francs to the press. Furthermore, on 3 May 2008, the President of Mali had laid the first stone of the Press House, which would be built at government expense. 55. Replying to the question about the low school enrolment rate and, in particular, the disparity of enrolment between girls and boys, the representative of Mali pointed out that the school enrolment rate had risen from 67 per cent to 77 per cent for primary education and from 30 per cent to 44.3 per cent for secondary education. Moreover, there was a national policy to encourage the enrolment of girls and a policy on school canteens. Despite the Government’s efforts and its steadfast political will to increase girls’ school attendance, the after-effects and weight of tradition still led to a disparity in school enrolment rates for girls and boys. The current Marriage and Guardianship Code provided that marriage must be based on mutual consent, and set a minimum age of 18 for boys and 15 for girls. Once the draft Personal and Family Code was adopted, it would set a uniform minimum age for marriage of 18 for both sexes and would abolish all the other provisions that discriminated against women and children. Begging by children in Koranic schools and by children from poor families was an infringement of the law. With regard to allocations for children, he said that his country’s efforts were proving inadequate because of the Government’s meagre resources. Measures to combat HIV/AIDS constituted a priority for Mali and the Government had: (a) set up the High National Council to Combat HIV/AIDS, which had branches throughout the country; (b) formulated a national strategic framework to combat HIV/AIDS for 2006-2010; (c) drawn up an operational plan for 2007-2010; (d) introduced free antiretroviral treatment; (e) adopted a law to protect the rights of persons infected with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS; (f) drawn up a national policy on care for AIDS orphans and children with AIDS and set up a national coordinating committee and a monitoring and evaluation mechanism; and (g) devised a strategy and multisectoral national plan of action. There was no slavery in Mali and Tamasheks were not victims of slavery. With regard to the Tuareg question, the representative of Mali confirmed that negotiations were continuing within the framework of the Algiers Agreement. The head of the Malian delegation thanked speakers for the interest they had shown in his country. Mali was striving to honour its commitments and was relying on the international community’s assistance in order to consolidate its achievements and to make further progress in the promotion and protection of human rights. II. CONCLUSIONS AND/OR RECOMMENDATIONS 56. The recommendations formulated during the interactive dialogue have been examined by Mali and the recommendations listed below enjoy the support of Mali: 1. To pursue its efforts against poverty with appropriate and focused assistance from the international community, including OHCHR (Algeria);