Traffic in Women and Girls

A/RES/55/67No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 107Advancement of women, published in 2001.

What other versions does this mandate have?

6 versions · 1995–2001

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 does this mandate say?

20 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on activities of United Nations bodies and other international organizations pertaining to the problem of trafficking in women and girls;

Welcomes the steps taken by human rights treaty bodies, the special rapporteurs and subsidiary bodies of the Commission on Human Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, other United Nations bodies, and international, intergovernmental and governmental organizations, within their mandates, as well as non-governmental organizations, to address the problem of trafficking in women and girls, and encourages them to continue doing so and to share their knowledge and best practices as widely as possible;

Urges 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, in order 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;

Also urges Governments to devise, enforce and strengthen effective measures to combat and eliminate all forms of trafficking in women and girls through a comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy consisting of, inter alia, legislative measures, prevention campaigns, information exchange, assistance and protection for and reintegration of the victims and prosecution of all the offenders involved, including intermediaries;

Encourages Member States to conclude bilateral, subregional, regional and international agreements, as well as undertake initiatives, including regional initiatives, to address the problem of trafficking in women and girls, such as the Action Plan for the Asia-Pacific region of the Asian Regional Initiative against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,22 the European Union initiatives on a comprehensive European policy and programmes on trafficking in human beings as expressed in the conclusions of the European Council at its meeting held in Tampere,23 and the activities of the Council of Europe and of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in this field;

Calls upon all Governments to criminalize trafficking in women and children, in particular 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;

Invites Governments to consider setting up or strengthening a national coordinating mechanism, for example, a national rapporteur or an inter-agency body, with the participation of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, to encourage the exchange of information and to report on data, root causes, factors and trends in violence against women, in particular trafficking;

Urges concerned Governments, in cooperation with intergovernmental and 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;

Calls upon concerned Governments to allocate resources to provide comprehensive programmes designed to heal, rehabilitate and reintegrate into society and communities victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance and health care, and by taking measures to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims;

Encourages Governments, in cooperation with intergovernmental and 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;

Also invites Governments to consider preventing, within the legal framework and in accordance with national policies, victims of trafficking, in particular women and girls, from being prosecuted for their illegal entry or residence, taking into account that they are victims of exploitation;

Further 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 children, in particular girls;

Stresses the need for a global approach to eradicate trafficking in women and children and the importance, in this regard, of systematic data collection and comprehensive studies, and 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 trafficking 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 State parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,Error: Reference source not found the Convention on the Rights of the ChildError: Reference source not found and the International Covenants on Human RightsError: Reference source not found to include information and statistics on trafficking in women and girls as part of their national reports to their respective committees;

Encourages Governments as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, the human rights treaty bodies, the special rapporteurs, especially 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 Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the human rights of migrants, and subsidiary bodies of the Commission on Human Rights and other relevant United Nations bodies, within their respective mandates, to participate in and contribute to the work of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery of the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights at its twenty-sixth session, in 2001, which will focus on the issue of trafficking;

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 children, in particular girls, based on reports, research and other materials from within the United Nations, including the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, as well as from outside the United Nations, and to submit a report on the implementation of the present resolution to the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session.

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Traffic in Women and Girls

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