Top �� What's up around the Prime Minister �� April, 2003

The Tenth Meeting of the Council for Gender Equality Monday, April 8, 2003 The Tenth Meeting of the Council for Gender Equality was held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. At this meeting, the final report of "the Measures to Support Women's Challenges" was compiled and Ms. Sumiko Iwao, Chair of the Specialist Committee on Basic Issues, handed the report to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The report has been examined at the Specialist Committee upon instruction from Prime Minister Koizumi at the Fifth Meeting in January 2002 to deliberate on promotion of challenges by women. The report proposes the promotion of the Positive Action under which women can take positive activities, with the aim of increasing the proportion of women in directive positions to 30 percent by 2020, and developing an environment to support women who take on challenges by presenting familiar models for challenges. In response to the receipt of the report, Prime Minister Koizumi said, "Based on this report, I will continue to support women as they venture into new fields of employment and form a society in which men and women jointly participate and where is in no way inferior to other developed countries."