Intensification of Efforts to Eliminate All Forms of Violence Against Women

A/RES/67/144No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 28aAdvancement of women, published in 2013.

What other versions does this mandate have?

6 versions · 2007–2013

2013A/RES/67/144Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against womenLatestCompare with previous version
2011A/RES/65/187Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against womenCompare with previous version
2010A/RES/64/137Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against womenCompare with previous version
2009A/RES/63/155Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against womenCompare with previous version
2008A/RES/62/133Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against womenCompare 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?

6 topics

Coordination Within UN System Crime Prevention Databases Empowerment Gender Equality Gender-Based Violence

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2014.

2014A/69/222Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women report of the Secretary-General

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

What does this mandate say?

58 operative paragraphs

Stresses that “violence against women” means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life;

Recognizes that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men;

Also recognizes that violence against women and girls persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of the enjoyment of human rights and a major impediment to achieving gender equality, development, peace and the internationally agreed development goals, in particular the Millennium Development Goals;

Welcomes the report of the Secretary-General on the intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women, as well as the report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences on violence against women with disabilities;

Also welcomes the efforts and contributions at the local, national, regional and international levels to eliminate all forms of violence against women, including by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences;

Expresses its appreciation for the progress achieved in the Secretary-General’s 2008–2015 campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women” and the regional components of the campaign, and stresses the need to accelerate the implementation of concrete follow-up activities by the United Nations system to end all forms of violence against women;

Welcomes the contributions already made by States, the private sector and other donors to the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to End Violence against Women, while stressing the importance of further funding in order to meet the annual target of 100 million United States dollars by 2015;

Strongly condemns all acts of violence against women and girls, whether those acts are perpetrated by the State, by private persons or by non-State actors, including business enterprises, and calls for the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence in the family, within the general community and where perpetrated or condoned by the State;

Recognizes that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated and that the international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis, and stresses that, while the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms;

Stresses that it is important that States strongly condemn all forms of violence against women and refrain from invoking any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination as set out in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women;Error: Reference source not found

Also stresses that States have the obligation, at all levels, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, including women and girls, and must exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of violence against women and girls and eliminate impunity and should ensure protection, including adequate enforcement by police and the judiciary of civil remedies, orders of protection and criminal sanctions, and provision of shelters, psychosocial services, counselling and other types of support services, in order to avoid revictimization, and that to do so contributes to the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms by women subjected to violence;

Reaffirms that the persistence of armed conflicts in various parts of the world is a major impediment to the elimination of all forms of violence against women, and, bearing in mind that armed and other types of conflicts and terrorism and hostage-taking still persist in many parts of the world and that aggression, foreign occupation and ethnic and other types of conflicts are an ongoing reality, affecting women and men in nearly every region, calls upon all States and the international community to place particular focus on the plight, and give priority attention and increased assistance to relieving the suffering, of women and girls living in such situations and to ensure that, where violence is committed against them, all perpetrators of such violence are duly investigated and, as appropriate, prosecuted and punished in order to end impunity, while stressing the need to respect international humanitarian law and human rights law;

Stresses the need for the exclusion of killing and maiming of women and girls, as prohibited under international law, and crimes of sexual violence from amnesty provisions in the context of conflict resolution processes and to address such acts during all stages of the armed-conflict and post-conflict resolution process, while ensuring the full and effective participation of women in such processes;

Also stresses that, despite important steps taken by many countries around the world, States should continue to focus on the prevention of violence against women as well as on their protection and the provision of services, in order to complement more effectively the improved legal and policy frameworks, and should therefore monitor and rigorously evaluate the implementation of available programmes, policies and laws and improve, where possible, their impact and effectiveness;

Further stresses that States should take measures to ensure that all officials responsible for implementing policies and programmes aimed at preventing violence against women and girls, protecting and assisting the victims and investigating and punishing acts of violence receive ongoing and adequate training and access to information to sensitize them to the different and specific needs of women and girls, in particular those who have been subjected to violence, so that women and girls are not revictimized when seeking justice and redress;

Stresses that States should take all possible measures to empower and protect women against all forms of violence, to inform them of their human rights, including by disseminating information on the assistance available to women and families who have experienced violence and ensuring that timely and appropriate information is available to all women who have been subjected to violence, including at all stages of the justice system, and to inform everyone of women’s rights and of the existing penalties for violating those rights;

Calls upon States, with the support of United Nations entities, to fully engage men and boys, as well as families and communities, as agents of change in preventing and condemning violence against women and girls and to develop appropriate policies to promote the responsibility of men and boys in eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls;

Urges States to continue to develop their national strategies, translating them into concrete programmes and actions and a more systematic, comprehensive, multisectoral and sustained approach, aimed at eliminating all forms of violence against women, including by achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and by increasing the focus on prevention, protection and accountability in laws, policies and programmes and their implementation, monitoring and evaluation, so as to ensure the optimal use of available instruments, by, for example:

Establishing, in partnership with all relevant stakeholders and at all relevant levels, a comprehensive integrated national plan dedicated to combating violence against women and girls in all its aspects, which includes data collection and analysis, and prevention and protection measures, as well as national information campaigns, using resources to eliminate in the media gender stereotypes that lead to violence against women and girls;

Reviewing and, where appropriate, revising, amending or abolishing all laws, regulations, policies, practices and customs that discriminate against women or have a discriminatory impact on women, and ensuring that the provisions of multiple legal systems, where they exist, comply with international human rights obligations, commitments and principles, including the principle of non-discrimination;

Evaluating and assessing the impact of current legislation, rules and procedures regarding violence against women and the reasons for low reporting, reinforcing, where necessary, criminal law and procedure relating to all forms of violence against women and, where necessary, incorporating into law measures aimed at prevention and protecting and providing access to redress for women facing or subjected to violence;

Promoting awareness among all stakeholders of the need to combat violence against women, and promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, inter alia, through regular and repeated use and funding of awareness-raising campaigns nationwide and other ways to promote prevention and protection, such as international, regional and national conferences, seminars, training, publications, brochures, websites, audiovisual material, social media, television and radio spots, and debates, as appropriate;

Encouraging the media to examine the impact of gender role stereotypes, including those perpetuated by commercial advertisements which foster gender-based violence and inequalities;

Ensuring that there is sufficient knowledge, including expertise in effective legal approaches to eliminating violence against women and girls, awareness and coordination in the legal system and, to that end, where appropriate, appointing a focal point in the legal system for cases of violence against women and girls;

Ensuring also the systematic collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data to monitor all forms of violence against women, including on the effectiveness of preventive and protective measures, with the involvement of national statistical offices and, where appropriate, in partnership with other actors, in order to review and implement effectively laws, policies, strategies and preventive and protective measures, while ensuring and maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of the victims;

Establishing appropriate national mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of national measures, including national action plans, taken to eliminate violence against women, including through the use of national indicators;

Providing adequate financial support for the implementation of national strategies and action plans to end violence against women and girls and other relevant activities;

Allocating adequate resources to promote the empowerment of women and gender equality and to prevent and redress all forms and manifestations of violence against women;

Adopting all appropriate measures, especially in the field of education, from the entry levels of the education system, to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women of all ages, in order to promote the development of respectful relations and to eliminate prejudices, harmful customary practices and all other practices based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotyped roles for men and women, and by raising awareness of the unacceptability of violence against women and girls at all levels, including through schools, teachers, parents, religious leaders, youth organizations and teaching materials sensitized on gender equality and human rights;

Improving the safety of girls at and on the way to school, including by improving infrastructure such as transportation, providing separate and adequate sanitation facilities, improved lighting, playgrounds and safe environments, conducting violence prevention activities in schools and communities and establishing and enforcing penalties for violence against girls;

Developing gender-sensitive curricula for educational programmes at all levels and taking concrete measures to ensure that educational materials portray women and men, youth, girls and boys in positive and non-stereotypical roles;

Promoting preventive measures at an early stage with families and children exposed to or at risk of violence, such as parenting education programmes, to reduce the risk of possible perpetration of violence or revictimization in later childhood and adulthood;

Ensuring that the appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures are in place to protect children from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse;

Ensuring also that the appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures are in place to eliminate the occurrence of child and forced marriages and to provide information regarding the harm associated with these marriages;

Empowering women, in particular women living in poverty, by, inter alia, strengthening their economic autonomy and by ensuring their full participation in society and in decision-making processes, through, inter alia, social and economic policies that guarantee them full and equal access to all levels of quality education and training and to affordable and adequate public and social services, as well as equal access to financial resources and employment, and full and equal rights to own and have access to land and other property, and taking further appropriate measures to address the increasing rate of homelessness of and inadequate housing for women in order to reduce their vulnerability to violence;

Treating all forms of violence against women and girls as a criminal offence, punishable by law, contributing, inter alia, to the prevention and non-recurrence of such crimes, and ensuring penalties commensurate with the severity of the crimes and sanctions in national legislation to punish, and redress, as appropriate, the wrongs caused to women and girls who are subjected to violence;

Taking effective measures to prevent consent from becoming an impediment to bringing perpetrators of violence against women and girls to justice, while ensuring that criminal justice processes are gender-sensitive and that appropriate safeguards and measures to protect women facing or subjected to violence, such as restraining and expulsion orders against the perpetrators, testimonial aids and adequate and comprehensive measures for the rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of violence into society, are in place;

Encouraging the removal of all barriers to women’s access to justice and ensuring that they all have access to effective legal assistance so that they can make informed decisions regarding, inter alia, legal proceedings and issues relating to family law, and also ensuring that they have access to just and effective remedies for the harm that they have suffered, including through the adoption of national legislation where necessary;

Ensuring effective cooperation and coordination among all stakeholders, including all relevant public officials and civil society, in the prevention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of all forms of violence against women and girls;

Developing or improving and disseminating specialized training programmes, including practical tools and good-practice guidelines on how to identify, prevent and deal with cases of violence against women and girls and on how to protect and assist them in an impartial, supportive and effective manner, for all stakeholders responsible for dealing with violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, including police officers, the judiciary, health workers, law enforcement personnel and civil society, and engaging statisticians, researchers and the media;

Strengthening national health and social infrastructure to reinforce measures to promote and protect women’s equal access to public health-care services, including for sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and address the health consequences of all forms of violence against women, including by providing specialized health services such as supportive counselling, post-exposure prophylaxis for exposure to HIV and other services;

Providing immediate protection and support through the establishment of or support to integrated centres, available and accessible also in rural areas, through which shelter, legal, health, psychological, counselling and other services are available to all women facing or subjected to violence, as well as their children, and, where such centres are not feasible, promoting collaboration and coordination among agencies;

Encouraging the establishment or support of national and local helplines that provide information, counselling, support and referral services to women facing or subjected to violence;

Ensuring that the prison system and probation services provide appropriate rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators, as a preventive tool against recidivism;

Supporting and engaging in partnerships with non-governmental organizations, in particular women’s organizations, and other relevant actors and the private sector to end violence against women and girls and to protect and support women facing or subjected to violence and witnesses;

Calls upon the international community, including the United Nations system and, as appropriate, regional and subregional organizations, to support national efforts to promote the empowerment of women and gender equality in order to enhance national efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls, including, upon request, in the development and implementation of national action plans on the elimination of violence against women and girls, through, inter alia, official development assistance and other appropriate assistance, such as facilitating the sharing of guidelines, methodologies and best practices, taking into account national priorities;

Stresses the contribution of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the International Criminal Court to ending impunity, by ensuring accountability and punishing perpetrators of violence against women, and urges States to consider ratifying or acceding as a matter of priority to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,Error: Reference source not found which entered into force on 1 July 2002;

Calls upon the inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women, in consultation with the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality, to continue to provide guidance on the implementation of the 2010–2015 strategy for the Trust Fund and to further enhance its effectiveness as a system-wide funding mechanism for preventing and redressing all forms of violence against women and girls and to give due consideration, inter alia, to the findings and recommendations of the external evaluation of the Trust Fund;

Stresses that, within the United Nations system, adequate resources should be assigned to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) and other bodies, specialized agencies, funds and programmes responsible for the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights and to efforts throughout the United Nations system to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls, and calls upon the United Nations system to make the necessary support and resources available;

Also stresses the importance of the Secretary-General’s database on violence against women, expresses its appreciation to all the States that have provided the database with information regarding, inter alia, their national policies and legal frameworks aimed at eliminating violence against women and supporting victims of such violence, strongly encourages all States to regularly provide updated information for the database, and calls upon all relevant entities of the United Nations system to continue to support States, at their request, in the compilation and regular updating of pertinent information and to raise awareness of the database among all relevant stakeholders, including civil society;

Acknowledges the work of the Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat, as requested by the Statistical Commission, on the development of guidelines to support the production by Member States of statistics on violence against women;

Calls upon all United Nations bodies, entities, funds and programmes and the specialized agencies and invites the Bretton Woods institutions to intensify their efforts at all levels to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls and to better coordinate their work with a view to increasing effective support for national efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women;

Requests the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences to present an annual report to the General Assembly at its sixty-eighth and sixty-ninth sessions;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session a report containing:

Information provided by the United Nations bodies, funds and programmes and the specialized agencies on their follow-up activities to implement resolution 65/187 and the present resolution, including on their assistance to States in their efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women;

Information provided by States on their follow-up activities to implement the present resolution;

Also requests the Secretary-General to present an oral report to the Commission on the Status of Women at its fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth sessions including information provided by the United Nations bodies, funds and programmes and the specialized agencies on recent follow-up activities to implement resolutions 64/137 and 65/187 and the present resolution, including on the progress made in enhancing the effectiveness of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women as a system-wide United Nations mechanism and on the progress of the Secretary-General’s campaign to end violence against women, and urges United Nations bodies, entities, funds and programmes and the specialized agencies to contribute promptly to that report;

Decides to continue the consideration of the question at its sixty-ninth session under the item entitled “Advancement of women”.

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Who created this mandate?

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