DEMOCRATIZATION Gender Equality and Women’s Participation in Politics Ensuring equal opportunities for women and men to participate in political and public processes is a cornerstone of any democratic society. OSCE participating States have committed themselves to promoting women’s political participation as a means of achieving gender balance in political and public life, including at decision-making levels. In the OSCE region in 2013, women’s representation in national parliaments — a key indicator for measuring advances in gender equality in political life — increased to 24.3 per cent.1 Despite this increase, however, women continue to face legal and practical obstacles to participating in politics on an equal basis with men. Accordingly, ODIHR focused on three key areas to promote women’s political participation: facilitating women’s advancement within political parties; supporting women’s participation in political and electoral processes; and enhancing gender equality as well as women’s meaningful representation in parliaments. Migration and Freedom of Movement The OSCE region hosts more than half of the world’s migrant population, with OSCE participating States facing challenges of changing volumes of migratory flows, increasing demands on their labour forces and high unemployment rates. These are compounded by the varying requirements of different national legislation and policies in relation to migration. OSCE participating States need to develop and maintain their capacity to formulate national migration policies with a view to protecting migrant rights in line with OSCE commitments and international legal standards. In addition, many OSCE participating States have waived visa requirements, leading to a higher volume of travel and foreign visits to their countries. Innovative approaches in handling an increased number of visitors at external borders and the facilitation of access to visas for citizens of OSCE participating States are required. Increased internal migration creates challenges for OSCE participating States in providing access to state services and the ability to exercise civil rights for all citizens. In those OSCE participating States that use residency as a criteria for service delivery, residency 1  ODIHR assessment based on information compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union http://www.ipu.org/ wmn-e/world.htm as of November 2013. registration is used as a tool in planning and delivering such services. Citizens’ enrolment in a residency registration system determines their ability to exercise their right to freedom of movement as well as many other civil and fundamental rights. ODIHR provides support to OSCE participating States in promoting human contacts and protecting the right to freedom of movement by reforming population-registration systems as well as facilitating the exchange of good practices in the area of migration, with a focus on capacity building and the development of gender-sensitive labour migration and migrant integration policies in the OSCE region. ACTIVITIES ODIHR’s democratization activities can be divided into three basic areas: ƻƻ ƻƻ ƻƻ Rule of law and legal reform; Democratic governance and gender; and Migration and freedom of movement. RULE OF LAW AND LEGAL REFORM ODIHR offers expert advice and legislative assistance to OSCE participating States in reforming their institutional and legislative frameworks to meet relevant international human rights standards and OSCE commitments. ODIHR also supports states’ legislative reform efforts to draft and adopt legislation in line with key OSCE commitments on transparency and inclusiveness in the lawmaking process and facilitates the exchange of good practices. ODIHR carries out this work through providing expert opinions on key legislation pertaining to the rule of law and other human dimension areas, conducting expert meetings, monitoring projects and assessments, and developing policy guidelines and recommendations. ODIHR also strives to ensure that reform debates in participating States are inclusive and participatory and, therefore, works in co-operation with government agencies, parliaments, judiciaries, political parties, legal communities, international organizations, academia and civil society. Independence of the Judiciary Strengthening judicial independence continues to be a focus of ODIHR’s rule of law assistance to participating States. Along with OSCE commitments ODIHR Annual Report 2013  /   23