Traffic in Women and Girls

A/RES/53/116No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 103Advancement of women, published in 1999.

What other versions does this mandate have?

6 versions · 1995–2001

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/55/67

2001A/RES/55/67Traffic in women and girlsLatestCompare with previous version
1999A/RES/53/116Traffic in women and girlsCompare with previous version
1998A/RES/52/98Traffic in women and girlsCompare with previous version
1997A/RES/51/66Traffic in women and girlsCompare with previous version
1996A/RES/50/167Traffic in women and girlsCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

19 topics

Child Pornography Child Prostitution Crime Prevention Data Collection Gender-Based Violence Girls Illicit Traffic Internet Laws and Regulations Manuals Programme Implementation Programmes of Action Prostitution Resources Allocation Sale of Children Social Research Technical Cooperation Women Women's Rights

What does this mandate say?

23 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on trafficking in women and girls;

Welcomes national, regional and international efforts to implement the recommendations of the World Congress against Commercial and Sexual Exploitation of Children, and calls upon Governments to take further measures in that regard;

Urges Governments to continue their efforts to implement the provisions on trafficking in women and girls contained in the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights;8

Encourages Governments to intensify their efforts to implement the policy recommendations and strategies on trafficking in women and girls contained in the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and its functional commissions, in particular the Programme of Action for the Prevention of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others adopted by the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-second session, taking into account the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences in her reports to the Commission at its fifty-third and fifty-fourth sessions, and those of the human rights treaty bodies relating to the traffic in women and girls;

Encourages Member States to conclude bilateral, subregional, regional and international agreements to address the problem of trafficking in women and girls;

Also encourages Member States to strengthen cooperation through information-sharing of experience, best practices and lessons learned through, inter alia, consultation mechanisms, such as the regional consultation process organized in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration;

Calls upon Governments to take appropriate measures to address the root factors, including external factors, that encourage trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriages and forced labour, so as to eliminate trafficking in women, including by strengthening existing legislation with a view to providing better protection of the rights of women and girls and to punishing perpetrators, through both criminal and civil measures;

Calls upon all Governments to criminalize trafficking in women and girls in all its forms, to condemn and penalize all those offenders involved, including intermediaries, whether their offence was committed in their own or in a foreign country, while ensuring that the victims of those practices are not penalized, and to penalize persons in authority found guilty of sexually assaulting victims of trafficking in their custody;

Urges concerned Governments, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, to support and allocate resources for programmes to strengthen preventive action, in particular education and campaigns to increase public awareness of the issue at the national and grass-roots levels;

Encourages Governments, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, to undertake campaigns aimed at clarifying opportunities, limitations and rights in the event of migration so as to enable women to make informed decisions and to prevent them from becoming victims of trafficking;

Also encourages Governments to intensify collaboration with non-governmental organizations to develop and implement programmes for effective counselling, training and reintegration into society of victims of trafficking, and programmes that provide shelter and helplines to victims or potential victims;

Invites Governments to take steps, including witness protection programmes, to enable women who are victims of trafficking to make complaints to the police and to be available when required by the criminal justice system, and to ensure that during this time women have access to social, medical, financial and legal assistance, and protection, as appropriate;

Encourages Governments to take effective and expeditious measures, particularly the enactment or amendment, if necessary, of domestic legislation to provide appropriate penalties, such as substantial imprisonment, fines and forfeiture, in order to combat all aspects of organized criminal activities related to trafficking at the international level in women and children;

Invites Governments to encourage Internet service providers to adopt or strengthen self-regulatory measures to promote the responsible use of the Internet with a view to eliminating trafficking in women and girls;

Encourages Governments to develop systematic data-collection methods and to update continuously information on trafficking in women and girls, including the analysis of the modus operandi of trafficking syndicates;

Urges Governments to strengthen national programmes to combat trafficking in women and girls through sustained bilateral, regional and international cooperation, taking into account innovative approaches and best practices, and invites Governments, United Nations bodies and organizations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and the private sector to undertake collaborative and joint research and studies on traffic in women and girls that can serve as a basis for policy formulation or change;

Invites Governments, once again, with the support of the United Nations, to formulate training manuals for law enforcement and medical personnel and judicial officers who handle cases of trafficked women and girls, taking into account current research and materials on traumatic stress and gender-sensitive counselling techniques, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of victims;

Invites States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,2 the Convention on the Rights of the Child5 and the International Covenants on Human Rights3 to include information and statistics on trafficking in women and girls as part of their national reports to their respective committees;

Invites the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery of the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to continue to address, within their respective mandates, the problem of trafficking in women and girls as a priority concern and to recommend, in their reports, measures to combat such phenomena;

Reiterates its call upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in addressing the obstacles to the realization of the human rights of women, in particular through her contacts with the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, to include the traffic in women and girls among her priority concerns;

Welcomes the initiatives and activities of United Nations bodies and organizations and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to combat trafficking in women and girls, and invites them to strengthen their activities in this context;

Encourages the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality to continue to address the issue as part of the integrated follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women;

Requests the Secretary-General to compile, as reference and guidance, successful interventions and strategies in addressing the various dimensions of the problem of trafficking in women and girls based on reports, research and other materials within and outside the United Nations and to submit a report to the General Assembly at its fifty-fifth session on the implementation of the present resolution.

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