Trafficking in Women and Girls

A/RES/57/176No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 102Advancement of women, published in 2003.

What other versions does this mandate have?

12 versions · 2003–2024

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/154

2024A/RES/79/154Trafficking in women and girlsLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/194Trafficking in women and girlsCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/75/158Trafficking in women and girlsCompare with previous version
2019A/RES/73/146Trafficking in women and girlsCompare with previous version
2017A/RES/71/167Trafficking in women and girlsCompare with previous version

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

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2004.

2004A/59/185Trafficking in women and girls report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

26 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General;

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;

Also welcomes the decision of the Commission on the Status of Women to consider at its forty-seventh session the priority theme “Women’s human rights and the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls, as defined in the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of the special session of the General Assembly entitled ‘Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century’ ”, which will include issues relating to trafficking in women and girls;

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, capacity-building, legislative measures, prevention campaigns, information exchange, assistance and protection for and reintegration of the victims and prosecution of all the offenders involved, including intermediaries, and to draw up, as appropriate, national action plans and programmes to improve the protection of trafficked women and girls;

Further urges Governments to consider signing and ratifying relevant United Nations legal instruments such as the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime20 and the Protocols thereto, in particular the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,21 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women2 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,5 the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women8 and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography,7 as well as the Convention concerning Discrimination in respect of Employment and Occupation, 1958 (Convention No. 111) and the Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999 (Convention No. 182), of the International Labour Organization;

Encourages Member States to conclude bilateral, subregional, regional and international agreements, as well as to 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, the initiatives of the European Union 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 at Tampere, Finland, on 15 and 16 October 1999, and the activities of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the International Organization for Migration 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 local or foreign, through the competent national authorities, either in the country of origin of the offender or in the country in which the abuse occurs, in accordance with due process of law, while ensuring that the victims of those practices are not penalized for being trafficked, 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;

Encourages Governments and relevant United Nations bodies, within existing resources, to take appropriate measures to raise public awareness of the issue of trafficking, particularly in women and girls, as well as the laws, regulations and penalties relating to this issue, and to emphasize that trafficking is a crime, in order to reduce the demand for trafficked women and children;

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, as appropriate, to provide comprehensive programmes for the physical, psychological and social recovery of 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;

Calls upon Governments to take steps to ensure that the treatment of victims of trafficking, especially women and girls, as well as all measures taken against trafficking in persons, in particular those that affect the victims of such trafficking, are applied with full respect for the human rights of those victims and are consistent with internationally recognized principles of non-discrimination, including the prohibition of racial discrimination and the availability of appropriate legal redress;

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

Invites the business sector, in particular the tourism and telecommunications industries, including mass media organizations, to cooperate with Governments in 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 using common methodology and internationally defined indicators, which need to be developed, to make it possible to gather relevant and comparable figures, and encourages Governments to develop systematic data-collection methods using such common methodology and indicators 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, and taking into account current research and materials on traumatic stress and gender-sensitive counselling techniques, to formulate training manuals for law enforcement and medical personnel and judicial officers who handle cases of trafficked women and girls, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of victims;

Urges Governments to provide or strengthen training for law enforcement, immigration and other relevant officials in the prevention of trafficking in persons, which should focus on methods used in preventing such trafficking, prosecuting the traffickers and protecting the rights of victims, including protecting the victims from traffickers, to ensure that the training also takes into account the need to consider human rights and child- and gender-sensitive issues, and to encourage cooperation with non-governmental organizations, other relevant organizations and other elements of civil society;

Invites States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child 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 and to work towards developing a common methodology and statistics to obtain comparable data;

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 Office on Drugs and Crime of the Secretariat, 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-ninth session;

Also requests the Secretary-General to include in his report to the General Assembly at its fifty-ninth session proposals for a future international/United Nations year against trafficking in persons, especially women and girls, with a view to protecting their dignity and human rights.

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Trafficking in Women and Girls

Who created this mandate?

What other versions does this mandate have?

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Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What does this mandate say?

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