CHAPTER THREE: DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE police force. Moreover, the General Directorate of National Security has initiated major reforms aimed both at recruitment (selection method, profile, and greater access of women to the profession) and at the training of officers, especially in the area of human rights in general, and specifically the rights of women, children and other social categories. These reforms made it possible to establish a neighbourhood police in 1997. 330. A more significant presence of women in the police force, as well as in other judicial professions (where they already represent one third of the judges) and extra-judicial professions will certainly have an impact in terms of improving the general plight of women, children and society. 331. In relation to the right of women to employment, the June 2006 document on “Women and Socio-Economic Integration: Summary of a National Survey”, by the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Health, Population and Hospital Reform, who is responsible for the Family and the Condition of Women, reveals that only 14.6 per cent of all formal work positions are held by women. It would appear that outside certain areas of the public sector, the judiciary and some liberal professions, where the presence of women is almost equal to that of men, women do not have the same opportunities and employment prospects in other economic sectors. Aside from the fact that Algerian society needs the full participation of women in the development process, paid employment is a right aspired to by the overwhelming majority of women who participated in the survey cited above. The remarkable increase in the education of young girls, together with shifting perceptions and economic changes experienced by the country, has created a far greater demand for jobs on the part of women. To satisfy this basic economic right, measures that favour equal recruitment opportunities for men and women are essential. The same is true of the establishment of an environment allowing women to balance their professional and family lives, such as local services ensuring preschool care for children; care of the aged, the ill or disabled; transport to facilitate access to the places of work; household appliances at reasonable cost; and effective measures against sexual harassment which, although it has been included in the Criminal Code, continues to persist. 332. Considerable progress has been recorded in the number of women in decisionmaking positions, especially as regards their percentages in representative bodies, the judicial sector (where they now represent approximately one third of the judiciary), and in management positions. Nonetheless, great disparities continue to exist in most decision-making structures, especially the parliament, ministerial posts, wilaya assemblies and communes. Moreover, in all elevated positions of public office there is a large percentage of women officials but an exceedingly small number of them at the more senior levels (see the statistics provided in an annexe to the CSAR). 109