Traditional or Customary Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Girls

A/RES/56/128View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 112 Advancement of women, published in 2002.

What other versions does this mandate have?

4 versions · 1998–2002

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2002	A/RES/56/128	Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls	1,795	59%Compare
2000	A/RES/54/133	Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls	1,725	53%Compare
1999	A/RES/53/117	Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls	1,506	23%Compare
1998	A/RES/52/99	Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls	1,802	–

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report · 2003

Year	Symbol	Title		Mandate resolution
2003	A/58/169	Traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls report of the Secretary-General		A/RES/56/128

What subjects does this mandate have?

17 subjects

Child Health Data Collection Female Genital Mutilation Girls Harmful Traditional Practices Health Services Information Dissemination Information Exchange International Obligations Law Enforcement Laws and Regulations Public Opinion Signatures, Accessions, Ratifications Specialized Agencies Technical Cooperation Treaties Women's Health

What’s in this document?

31 operative paragraphs

Welcomes:

The report of the Secretary-General,²¹ which provides encouraging examples of national and international developments;

²¹A/56/316.

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 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 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 her continuing contribution to the campaign to eliminate female genital mutilation;

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 elimination of harmful traditional or customary practices will be considered during the special session of the General Assembly on children;

Emphasizes the need for technical and financial assistance to those 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 or accede to, 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 WomenError: Reference source not found and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,Error: Reference source not found to consider signing and ratifying or acceding to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women²² and to respect and implement fully their obligations under any such treaties to which they are parties;

²²Resolution 54/4, annex.

To implement the international commitments made at relevant major United Nations conferences and special sessions and summit meetings of the General Assembly held since 1990 and their follow-up processes;

To collect and disseminate basic data about the occurrence of traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation;

To develop, adopt and implement national legislation, policies, plans and programmes that prohibit traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, including female genital mutilation, and to prosecute the perpetrators of such practices;

To establish, if they have not done so, a concrete national mechanism for the implementation and monitoring of relevant legislation, law enforcement and national policies;

To establish or strengthen support services to respond to the needs of victims by, inter alia, developing comprehensive and accessible sexual and reproductive health services and by providing training to health-care providers at all levels on the harmful health consequences of such practices;

To address specifically in the training of health and other relevant personnel traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls, also addressing the increased vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections due to such practices;

To take all necessary measures to empower women and strengthen their economic independence and protect and promote the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms in order to allow women and girls better to protect themselves from, inter alia, traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls;

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, inter alia, by involving public opinion leaders, educators, religious leaders, chiefs, traditional leaders, medical practitioners, teachers, women’s health and family planning organizations, social workers, childcare agencies, relevant non-governmental organizations, the arts and the media in awareness-raising campaigns, in order to achieve the total elimination of those practices;

To address traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls in education curricula, as appropriate;

To promote men’s understanding of their roles and responsibilities with regard to promoting the elimination of harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation;

To continue to take specific measures to increase the capacity of communities, including immigrant and refugee communities, in which female genital mutilation is practised, to engage in activities aimed at preventing and eliminating such practices;

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, as well as through alternative training and education possibilities for traditional practitioners;

To cooperate closely with the Special Rapporteur of the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights on traditional practices affecting the health of women and the girl child, in particular by supplying all necessary information requested by her and by giving serious consideration to inviting her to visit their countries;

To cooperate closely with relevant specialized agencies and United Nations funds and programmes, as well as with regional intergovernmental organizations, as appropriate, and relevant community and non-governmental organizations, including women’s 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, and to prosecute the perpetrators of such practices;

Invites:

Relevant specialized agencies, United Nations bodies, regional intergovernmental organizations 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 to address this subject at its forty-seventh session under the priority theme “Women’s human rights and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls as defined in the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome document of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly”;

Governments, organizations and individuals that are in a position to do so to contribute to the trust fund that supports the work of the Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation of the United Nations Population Fund;

Requests the Secretary-General:

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

To report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the present resolution, with a special focus on recent national and international developments, including examples of national best practices and international cooperation.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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