Aitkul SAMAKOVA Chairperson of the National Commission on Family Affairs and Gender Policy under the President of Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan) Aitkul Samakova is Advisor to the president and the chairperson of the National Commission on Family Affairsand Gender Policy under the President of Kazakhstan Republic. She has three full educations- as an economic engineer, a politician, and a lawyer. She began to work in Almaty in the tinned food enterprise, where she worked for 13 years. Then, Samakova worked in party organs, as the Deputy Minister of Trade, as a senator and deputy chairman of the Parliament Senate, and as the Minister. Samakova also served as the Minister of Environmental Protection and continues to run the aforementioned National Commission. As the chairperson of the National Commission, she participated in many forums and committees relating to women and their status in Kazakhstan including the 37th session of the Committee on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEADW) held in 16 January 2007. At the session, she presented the Second Periodic Report of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the implementation of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Kazakhstan acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1998 and became a party to its Optional Protocol in 2001. Kazakhstan submitted to the United Nations its Initial Report in 1999 and the Second Report on the Implementation of the Convention in 2004.