A/HRC/40/3 representatives for strengthening legislation on minority rights and addressing key concerns ranging from the protection of religious minorities to advancing the rights of Roma. It contributed to a specialized training course, held in Vienna, on protecting national minorities in the area covered by of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. A mission to France sought to strengthen the actions of the Government to promote and protect the right to housing and related rights for Roma. 4. Gender equality and women’s rights 57. OHCHR organized panel discussions on access to and participation in information and communication technologies, violence against women human rights defenders and women’s organizations in digital spaces, and gender integration in human rights investigations. It issued two reports on the implementation of the technical guidance on the application of a human rights-based approach to the implementation of policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity (A/HRC/39/26 and A/73/257). 58. OHCHR supported the Equal Opportunities Commission of Uganda in mainstreaming gender issues in the programming and budgeting of local government. In El Salvador, it provided technical support to the authorities for the establishment of a committee of experts to review the cases of women accused and/or convicted of homicide charges following miscarriages and other obstetric emergencies. 59. OHCHR organized two workshops relating to gender, human rights and migration as well as gender-based violence and human rights for West African countries. With the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and WHO, it organized an expert meeting in Bangkok on surrogacy and human rights and conducted a regional workshop for women human rights defenders with UNFPA in Pretoria on engaging international and regional human rights mechanisms to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. It supported two meetings of the Central American network of women’s non-governmental organizations working on sexual and reproductive health rights. 60. Further to the 2017 report “Women’s rights in Africa”, OHCHR, with the African Commission, contributed to a project on ratification, domestication and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. 61. OHCHR continued to support the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice in setting progressive standards and, with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, in strengthening protection networks for women human rights defenders. 5. Persons with disabilities 62. OHCHR contributed to the development of an action plan and accountability framework to strengthen accessibility and mainstreaming of the rights of persons with disabilities across the United Nations system. It continued to support the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the adoption of legislation on the rights of persons with disabilities in a number of countries, including Burundi, Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Suriname and Uganda. In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, OHCHR advised on the elaboration of a national strategy on the deinstitutionalization of persons with disabilities. 63. In Timor-Leste, OHCHR, together with United Nations agencies in the framework of the United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, embarked on a joint project to reduce violence and discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. It co-organized events in the occupied Palestinian territory on the protection of persons with disabilities in conflict and on mainstreaming disability in the humanitarian response. 6. Sexual orientation and gender identity 64. OHCHR worked to raise awareness of the human rights concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. It led the United Nations Free and Equal public 9