An Osaka-based group of working women demanded Friday that the government change the law to ban indirect discrimination against females in the workplace.

Five members of the Working Women's International Network submitted a petition to change the Equal Employment Opportunity Law to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and a subcommittee of the ministry's Labor Policy Council, working on revisions to the law.

"Women cannot get equal footing in the workplace without a legal ban on indirect sexual discrimination," network member Shizuko Koedo said.

One way employers can discriminate against women is through the dual career-track system, in which one path is for people who will become managers and the other is for clerical workers.

In a 2003 survey of 236 randomly selected firms, only 3 percent of employees on the management track were women, according to the labor ministry.

The equal employment law does not mention indirect discrimination. The ministry only asks employers not to use the two-track system to discriminate against women.

The group also said in its petition that companies should put temporary measures in place to get more women on the management track.

The firms should give women more job training, fewer assignments and exempt them from from long-distance transfers, Koedo said.

Current corporate practice is for people headed for management jobs to work in a wide variety of positions, which means they must change offices often, including oversea postings.

The Labor Policy Council, comprised of 16 academics, legal experts, labor union members and employers, plans to give its recommendations on revisions to the law to the labor minister by the end of the year, a ministry official said.