A/HRC/19/18 programme on inclusive education with the objective of creating conditions for the inclusion of children who had not been in public school system as well as those studying in regular schools but in need of special education. 61. As shaping the existing traditions was required along with the development of legal framework to address the issue of child labour, the Government approved the National Plan for Combating the Child Labour and Exploitation to inter alia raise public awareness on the issue of child labour. The Government had also adopted the National Strategy to reform the residential care system and increased the State funding for this purpose. The number of children in the institutions had decreased by 40 per cent. At the same time, a large number of children remained without parental care as a result of migration of the population abroad in a search for jobs. To this end, the Government had started a nationwide study to assess and address the needs of such children. 62. To address a question on the status and use of the Russian language, the delegation stated that the legal framework, and specifically the law regarding the functioning of spoken languages on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, required the creation of the necessary conditions to guarantee access to education in Russian, Gagauz, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and other languages. Students were entitled with the right to choose the language of instruction at any level of education. Furthermore, the Russian language was legally recognized as a language of interethnic communication. There was a mandatory subject on Russian language and literature in the schools with education in the Romanian language. Domestic legislation and official communications were available in the Russian language. Every citizen had a right to request and to receive information from the public authorities in the State language or Russian. 63. Regarding to the issue of schools with education in Russian, the delegation reported that there were 280 Russian-language schools functioning nationwide. The information about the closure of 60 Russian schools in the past two years was incorrect. In the past years, only 14 of the 70 educational institutions which were reorganized or simply merged with others, were Russian-language schools. The delegation suggested that the decrease in the number of such schools should be explained keeping in mind the general demographic trend of the population and restructuring of the education system. 64. The delegation reported on a number of steps undertaken by the Government to ensure gender equality in line with the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, including training conducted for the gender focal points of all State agencies, the inclusion of special chapters on gender equality in the State Programme and Action Plan, and gender mainstreaming in the draft development strategy „Moldova 2020‟. It also mentioned that a recommendation on temporary special measures was initiated before the Parliament to introduce a 30 per cent quota in the election of the members of the Parliament. 65. Regarding the issue of domestic violence, the Government had co-sponsored several shelters for victims countrywide. The National Bureau of Statistics adopted a special module to its periodic surveys to track in official data incidence, frequency and profile of domestic violence. Additionally, Moldova, in 2010 recognized domestic violence as a criminal offence. The relevant legal provisions provided a definition and a mechanism for the enforcement including the mechanism for the protection orders. In less than two years, about 200 protection orders were enforced in respect to cases of domestic violence. 66. As the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region had been a source of serious concern, the Government had been monitoring the violations of human rights in the region. In this respect, the Government had regularly raised the cases of human rights violations before the relevant international actors and also sought for the cooperation with 11