Traditional or Customary Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Girls

A/RES/53/117No 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?

4 versions · 1998–2002

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/56/128

2002A/RES/56/128Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girlsLatestCompare with previous version
2000A/RES/54/133Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girlsCompare with previous version
1999A/RES/53/117Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girlsCompare with previous version
1998A/RES/52/99Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls

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

What subjects does this mandate have?

11 topics

Female Genital Mutilation Financial Assistance Girls Harmful Traditional Practices Information Exchange International Instruments Laws and Regulations Public Opinion Technical Cooperation Women's Health Women's Rights

What does this mandate say?

29 operative paragraphs

Welcomes:

The report of the Secretary-General, which provides encouraging examples of national best practices and international cooperation;

The efforts undertaken by United Nations bodies, programmes and organizations, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, to address the issue of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, and encourages them to continue to coordinate their efforts;

The work carried out by the Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation of the United Nations Population Fund and the fact that she has been invited to various countries, as well as the establishment, by the United Nations Population Fund, of a trust fund to support her work;

The work carried out by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children and other non-governmental and community organizations, including women’s organizations, in raising awareness of the harmful effects of such practices, in particular of female genital mutilation;

The fact that the Commission on the Status of Women addressed the issue of harmful traditional or customary practices at its session in 1998;

Emphasizes the need for technical and financial assistance to developing countries working to achieve the elimination of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls from United Nations funds and programmes, international and regional financial institutions, and bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as the need for assistance to non-governmental organizations and community-based groups active in this field from the international community;

Calls upon all States:

To ratify, if they have not yet done so, the relevant human rights treaties, in particular the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women1 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,2 and to respect and implement fully their obligations under such treaties to which they are parties;

To implement their international commitments in this field, inter alia, under the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women,7 the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development5 and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights;4

To develop and implement national legislation and policies prohibiting traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation, inter alia, through appropriate measures against those responsible, and to establish, if they have not done so, a concrete national mechanism for the implementation and monitoring of legislation, law enforcement and national policies;

To intensify efforts to raise awareness of and to mobilize international and national public opinion concerning the harmful effects of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation, in particular through education, the dissemination of information, training, the media and local community meetings, in order to achieve the total elimination of these practices;

To promote the inclusion of discussion of the empowerment of women and their human rights in primary and secondary education curricula and to address specifically traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls in such curricula and in the training of health personnel;

To involve, among others, public opinion leaders, educators, religious leaders, chiefs, traditional leaders, medical practitioners, women’s health and family planning organizations and the media in publicity campaigns, with a view to promoting a collective and individual awareness of the human rights of women and girls and of how harmful traditional or customary practices violate those rights;

To explore, through consultations with communities and religious and cultural groups and their leaders, alternatives to harmful traditional or customary practices, in particular where those practices form part of a ritual ceremony or rite of passage;

To cooperate closely with the Special Rapporteur of the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities on traditional practices affecting the health of women and children and to respond to her inquiries;

To cooperate closely with relevant specialized agencies and United Nations funds and programmes, as well as with relevant non-governmental and community organizations, in a joint effort to eradicate traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls;

To include in their reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and other relevant treaty bodies specific information on measures taken to eliminate traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation;

To address the issue of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls in their national evaluations of the implementation of the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women;

To include specific information on measures taken to eliminate traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation, in the reports they submit to the Secretariat on the implementation of the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women in preparation for the high-level plenary review to appraise and assess the progress achieved in the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, to be convened by the General Assembly in the year 2000;

Invites:

Relevant specialized agencies, United Nations bodies and non-governmental organizations to exchange information on the subject of the present resolution, and encourages the exchange of such information between non-governmental organizations active in this field and the bodies monitoring the implementation of relevant human rights treaties;

The Commission on the Status of Women, at its forty-third session, to address the subject of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation, during its review of the critical area of concern “Women and health”;

The Commission on Human Rights to address this subject at its fifty-fifth session, thus allowing a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of these practices on the human rights of women;

Requests the Secretary-General:

To make his report available to relevant meetings within the United Nations system;

To include information on the subject of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls in the compilation of updated statistics and indicators on the situation of women and girls around the world, which he is requested to provide by the end of 1999, by issuing, for example, a new volume of The World’s Women;

To make available to the Commission on Human Rights, at its fifty-fifth session, the outcome of the discussions in the Commission on the Status of Women on this issue, if necessary in the form of an oral report;

To report to the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session on the implementation of the present resolution, with a special focus on recent national and international developments.

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