Intensification of Efforts to Prevent and Eliminate All Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls : The Digital Environment

A/RES/79/152View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 27Advancement of women, published in 2024.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

6 entities

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Crime Prevention Crime Victims Digital Technology Gender Equality Gender-Based Violence Women's Advancement Women's Rights

What does this mandate say?

54 operative paragraphs

Strongly condemns all forms of violence against all women and girls, which often occur in a continuum and throughout the life course, and their persistence and pervasiveness, recognizing that they are an impediment to the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and to the full realization of their human rights;

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

Urges States to strongly condemn all forms of violence against women and girls, both offline and online, and reaffirms that they should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination and should pursue, by all appropriate means and without delay, a policy of eliminating all forms of violence against women, as set out in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women;

Calls upon States to address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, which place women and girls at greater risk of exploitation, violence and abuse, to implement measures to prevent and eliminate gender stereotypes, negative social norms, attitudes and behaviours that cause or perpetuate discrimination and violence against women and girls and to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation and leadership in decision-making processes of all women and, as appropriate, girls;

Urges States to take comprehensive, multisectoral, coordinated, effective and gender-responsive measures to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls and to address structural and underlying causes and risk factors, including by:

Designing and implementing legislation and policies to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence and harmful practices against all women and girls, including sexual and gender-based violence, domestic violence, including intimate partner violence and marital rape, online violence, sexual harassment, gender-related killing of women and girls, including femicide and female infanticide, child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and to end impunity for such cases;

Addressing and eliminating the root causes of gender inequality, including all forms of discrimination against women and girls, patriarchal values, unequal power relations, gender stereotypes and negative social norms, perceptions and customs and harmful social norms, attitudes and behaviours, which justify, normalize, condone or perpetuate violence against women and girls and stigmatize victims and survivors;

Preventing and eliminating, in all public and private spheres, discrimination, gender stereotypes, negative social norms, attitudes and behaviours and unequal power relations by which women and girls are regarded as subordinate to men and boys, and that underlie and perpetuate male domination, by designing and implementing gender-responsive policies, regulations and legislation that are aimed at eliminating discriminatory attitudes and social and cultural patterns of conduct that condone violence against all women and girls;

Addressing and eliminating gender stereotypes and negative social norms that perpetuate racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, which reveal themselves in a differentiated manner for women and girls and can be among the factors leading to a deterioration in their living conditions, poverty, violence, multiple forms of discrimination and limitation or denial of their human rights;

Eliminating gender stereotypes and negative social norms that can lead to violence against migrant women and girls, including women migrant workers, by addressing the structural and underlying causes of all forms of violence against them, including through education and the dissemination of information to combat misinformation and stigma against them, by acknowledging their positive contributions, thereby combating negative perceptions of them, and by raising awareness of gender equality issues and promoting their economic empowerment and access to decent work;

Addressing the challenges presented by new methods of profiling, recruiting, controlling and exploiting victims of human trafficking, as well as sexual and other types of exploitation and abuse, and developing specialized victim-centred and trauma-informed training for law enforcement and criminal justice practitioners;

Taking measures to empower women by, inter alia, strengthening their economic autonomy and ensuring their full, effective, equal and meaningful participation in society and in decision-making processes by adopting and implementing social and economic policies that guarantee women full and equal access to opportunities, resources and basic services such as quality education and training and affordable and adequate public and social services, as well as full and equal access to financial, natural and productive resources and decent work, equal pay for work of equal value, and full and equal rights to own and have access to and control over land and other property, and guaranteeing women’s and girls’ inheritance rights, 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;

Enacting or strengthening and enforcing laws and policies to eliminate all forms of violence and harassment against women of all ages in the world of work, including by eliminating gender stereotypes and negative social norms;

Adopting measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute women’s and girls’ disproportionate share of unpaid care, informal and domestic work and to tackle the persisting feminization of poverty, including through paid maternity, paternity, paternal and other leave schemes, sustained investments in the digital and the care economy, the promotion of work-life and work-family balance and of an equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men within the household with respect to care and household work, efforts to bridge the gender digital divide, poverty eradication measures, labour policies, public services and social protection programmes, and to address the discrimination and gender inequality, including gender stereotypes and negative social norms, attitudes and behaviours and unequal power relations in which women and girls are viewed as subordinate to men and boys, that are at the root of these imbalances;

Ensuring the promotion and protection of the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences, including through the development and enforcement of policies and legal frameworks and the strengthening of health systems that make universally accessible and available quality, comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare services, commodities, information and education, including safe and effective methods of modern contraception, emergency contraception, prevention programmes for adolescent pregnancy, maternal healthcare such as skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, which will reduce obstetric fistula and other complications of pregnancy and delivery, safe abortion where such services are permitted by national law, and prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, HIV and reproductive cancers, recognizing that human rights include the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination and violence;

Developing and implementing programmes that aim to prevent and eliminate the gender digital divide and disparities in enrolment, and gender stereotypes and negative social norms in education systems, curricula and materials, whether derived from any discriminatory practices, social or cultural attitudes or legal and economic circumstances, and enhancing efforts to achieve universal and affordable connectivity, expand digital learning and literacy and facilitate access to information and communications technology for women and girls, including by addressing the gender digital divide, and thus ensuring that girls exercise their right to education;

Implementing, in partnership with all relevant stakeholders, effective violence prevention and response activities in schools and communities on the continuum between offline and online violence, educating children from a young age regarding the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect, and designing educational programmes and teaching materials that support consent, non-violent behaviour, respect for boundaries and what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and how to report it offline and online, that eliminate gender stereotypes and negative social norms, build self-esteem and informed decision-making and communication skills, that support the development of digital literacy and online safety curricula, especially among children, and that promote the development of respectful relationships based on gender equality, inclusion and respect for human rights;

Developing policies and programmes with the support, where appropriate, of international organizations, civil society and non-governmental organizations, giving priority to formal, informal and non-formal education programmes, including scientifically accurate and age-appropriate comprehensive education that is relevant to cultural contexts, that targets stereotyped gender roles and promotes the values of gender equality and non-discrimination, including positive masculinities, and that provides adolescent girls and boys and young women and men in and out of school, consistent with their evolving capacities, and with appropriate direction and guidance from parents and legal guardians, with the best interests of the child as their basic concern, information on sexual and reproductive health and HIV prevention, gender equality and women’s empowerment, human rights, physical, psychological and pubertal development, including menstrual health, and power in relationships between women and men, to enable them to build self-esteem and foster informed decision-making, communication and risk reduction skills and to develop respectful relationships, in full partnership with young persons, parents, legal guardians, caregivers, educators and healthcare providers, in order to, inter alia, enable them to protect themselves from HIV infection and other risks;

Removing barriers, including political, legal, cultural, social, economic, institutional and religious ones, preventing women’s full, equal, effective and meaningful participation in leadership and political and other decision-making positions, taking into account that promoting women to leadership positions may significantly reduce the risk of violence against women and girls and promoting the full, effective, equal and meaningful participation of women and women’s organizations, including victims and survivors of violence, in the development, implementation and evaluation of gender-responsive policies, regulations and legislation designed to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls and to allow civil society to operate freely and safely without fear of intimidation or reprisals;

Preventing, addressing and prohibiting sexual and gender-based violence, including sexual harassment, against all women and girls, both offline and online, in the world of work and in public and political life, including women in leadership positions, journalists and other media workers, feminists and women human rights defenders, including by ensuring proactive and rapid detection and an appropriate and effective response to prevent threats, harassment and violence, and extrajudicial killings, and to combat impunity by ensuring that those responsible for violations and abuses, including sexual and gender-based violence and threats, including in digital contexts, are promptly brought to justice and held accountable through impartial investigations;

Taking measures to address the use of hate speech, both online and offline, against women and girls, particularly those in vulnerable situations and those who may be subject to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in line with international human rights law, including the right to freedom of expression;

Promoting the full, equal and meaningful participation and leadership of young women and, as appropriate, adolescent girls in decision-making processes by addressing gender-specific barriers and by promoting and enabling spaces where they can express their views of all matters relevant to them, ensuring their full and equal access to quality education, including digital literacy, technology and skills development, leadership and mentorship programmes, increased technical and financial support, as well as the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in the technology workforce, including in cloud computing, software and artificial intelligence development and data management, and as entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers and industry executives and leaders, and noting that policies and programmes to achieve gender parity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics should place the responsibility for driving change on those who are responsible for creating supportive workplaces and educational settings in order to promote the representation of women and girls from different backgrounds;

Preventing, addressing and prohibiting all forms of discrimination, intimidation, harassment and violence, both offline and online, that prevent women and girls from fully enjoying all their human rights and fundamental freedoms, and taking all measures to address the gender digital divide, notably by supporting initiatives that strengthen the digital, media and information literacy and skills of women and girls, including those related to the protection of personal data and cybersecurity, and to ensure equal access of women and girls to information and communications technology design and consumption, promoting digital, media and information literacy and connectivity to enable the participation of all women and girls in education and training, while combating new technological developments that can perpetuate existing patterns of inequality and discrimination, including in the data and algorithms used in artificial intelligence-based solutions, enhancing resilience against the harmful impacts of misinformation and disinformation;

Promoting digital health, including digital health technologies, digital tools, telemedicine and mobile health, to achieve universal health coverage, notably by addressing all communicable and non-communicable diseases, including waterborne and neglected tropical diseases, to provide information on nutrition, healthy lifestyles and antenatal and postnatal health, and to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including for family planning, information and education; reinforcing the protection of information and data related to women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health, including menstrual health; and prioritizing that women and, as appropriate, girls are able to exercise full control and provide ongoing and informed consent over their privacy, personal data and information online;

Emphasizing that the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls must be respected, protected and promoted, both online and offline, and throughout the life cycle of artificial intelligence systems, and calling upon all Member States and, where applicable, other stakeholders to refrain from or cease the use of artificial intelligence systems and technologies that are impossible to operate in compliance with international human rights law or that pose undue risks to the enjoyment of human rights;

Promoting the critical role that information and communications technologies can play as spaces where all women and, as appropriate, girls can advocate, mobilize and participate fully, equally and meaningfully in public life, underlining the need for online platforms to strengthen their efforts to remove online sexual and gender-based violence-related content, including through the adoption of safety-by-design approaches in the development and deployment of digital tools and technologies, and emphasizing that women’s and girls’ online contributions can foster inclusive and participatory public discourse and policy outcomes that take into account the interests, needs and perspectives of all women and girls;

Adopting and implementing effective measures to encourage social media and online digital platforms to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, including the harmful and stereotypical portrayal of women or girls or specific groups of women or girls, from their activities, practices and output, including those perpetuated by advertisements, online and in other digital environments, that foster and perpetuate gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and inequality, and to address content that presents women and girls as inferior beings and exploiting them as sexual objects and commodities;

Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the conceptualization, development and implementation of digital technologies and related policies and promoting the participation of women in order to address violence and discrimination against women and girls in digital contexts, inter alia by encouraging digital technology companies, including Internet service providers, and digital platforms to respect standards and implement effective, inclusive, transparent and accessible reporting mechanisms;

Taking appropriate measures for the prevention of all forms of violence, intimidation, threats and attacks against women online and through digital technologies, and to protect them in online spaces, and considering adopting laws, policies and practices that protect them from defamation and hate speech while also respecting their human rights and fundamental freedoms;

Ensuring that, in armed conflict and post-conflict situations and in natural disaster situations, the prevention of and response to all forms of violence against women and girls, including sexual and gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence, are prioritized and effectively addressed and are centred on victims and survivors, while respecting the rights and prioritizing the needs of survivors, including groups that are particularly at risk or may be specifically targeted, including through the investigation, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators and the strengthening of national justice mechanisms to end impunity, the removal of barriers to women’s and girls’ access to justice, the establishment of complaint and reporting mechanisms and the provision of support and services to victims and survivors;

Engaging, educating, encouraging and supporting men and boys to be positive role models for gender equality and to promote respectful relationships, to refrain from and condemn all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, to increase their understanding of the harmful effects of violence for the victim/survivor and society as a whole, to encourage them to speak up in the defence of women’s and girls’ rights online and in the digital environment, and to ensure that they take responsibility and are held accountable for behaviour, including for behaviour that perpetuates gender stereotypes and negative social norms, including misconceptions about masculinities that underlie discrimination and violence against women and girls, and that men and boys take responsibility for their sexual and reproductive behaviour and for equitable sharing of responsibilities with respect to care and household work;

Holding persons in positions of authority, whether in public or private environments, such as teachers, religious and community leaders, traditional authorities, politicians and law enforcement officials, accountable for not complying with and/or upholding laws and regulations relating to violence against women and girls, both online and offline, in order to prevent and respond to such violence in a gender-responsive manner, to end impunity and to avoid the abuse of power leading to violence against women and girls and the revictimization of victims/survivors of such violence;

Also urges States to take immediate and effective action to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls that occur through or are amplified by the use of technology, and to support and protect all victims and survivors by:

Exercising due diligence and ensuring legislation to prevent, investigate, prosecute and hold to account the perpetrators of all forms of violence against women and girls, including violence that occurs through or is amplified by the use of technology, to eliminate impunity and to provide for effective access to appropriate remedies and reparations for victims and survivors, ensuring the protection of women and girls, including adequate enforcement of civil remedies, orders of protection and criminal sanctions, and the provision of shelters, mental health and psychosocial services, counselling, healthcare services and other types of support services, in order to avoid revictimization, promoting an empowering environment, and in doing so contributing to the enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by women and girls subjected to violence;

Removing all barriers to women’s access to justice and accountability mechanisms and ensuring that they all have access to information about their rights as well as 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 victim-centred remedies for the harm that they have suffered, including formal and appropriate informal justice mechanisms, as provided for by national legislation and, where necessary, the adoption of national legislation, bearing in mind that victims and survivors may be subjected to further discrimination or reprisals;

Providing relevant, comprehensive and victim-centred legal protection in full respect of human rights to support and assist victims and survivors of all forms of violence, in a gender-responsive manner, including victim and witness protection from reprisals for bringing complaints or giving evidence, within the framework of their national legal systems, including, as appropriate, legislative or other measures, such as addressing gender stereotypes and negative social norms throughout the criminal and civil justice system and law enforcement, taking into account women and girls facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination;

Ensuring that services and programmes designed to protect women and girls from violence are accessible to women and girls with disabilities, including those living in institutionalized settings, who are particularly vulnerable to violence, including by ensuring that facilities for such services and programmes are accessible, and disability is mainstreamed in materials and training courses addressed to professionals working on violence against women;

Establishing comprehensive, coordinated, interdisciplinary, accessible and sustained multisectoral services, programmes and responses for all victims and survivors of all forms of violence, including sexual harassment online and offline, that are adequately resourced, that are, when possible, in a language that they understand and in which they can communicate and that include effective and coordinated action by, as appropriate, relevant stakeholders, such as the police and the justice sector, as well as providers of legal aid services, health services, shelters, medical and psychological assistance counselling services and protection, and online digital platforms, and, in cases of girl victims and survivors, ensuring that such services, programmes and responses take into account the best interests of the child;

Establishing and/or strengthening law enforcement, health and social workers’ and counsellors’ response protocols and procedures to ensure that all appropriate actions are coordinated and taken to protect and respond to the needs of victims of violence, to identify acts of violence and to prevent their recurrence or further acts of violence and physical and psychological harm, ensuring that services are responsive to survivors’ needs, including by providing access to female healthcare providers, police officers and counsellors if requested, and ensuring and maintaining the privacy of victims and the confidentiality of their reporting;

Taking and implementing further measures to ensure that all officials, including those in leadership positions, responsible for implementing policies and programmes aimed at preventing violence against women and girls, protecting and assisting victims and investigating and punishing acts of violence receive training on gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment, to raise their awareness of gender-specific needs, as well as of the underlying causes and the short- and long-term impact of violence against women and girls, and training on gender-responsive investigation of crimes of violence against women and girls;

Encourages States, in efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, to work in partnership with the private sector and civil society, including women’s, young women’s, youth-led and community-based organizations, organizations of and led by persons with disabilities, faith-based organizations, rural, Indigenous and feminist groups, women human rights defenders, women journalists and media workers and trade, labour and other professional unions, as well as other relevant stakeholders, and to support initiatives undertaken by them, including by allocating adequate financial resources, aimed at promoting gender equality and inclusion and eliminating violence against women and girls;

Also encourages States to systematically collect, analyse and disseminate data disaggregated by sex, age and other parameters relevant in national contexts, including, where appropriate, administrative data from law enforcement officials, the health sector, the judiciary and other relevant sectors, to consider developing methodologies to collect data on all forms of violence against women and girls, including sexual harassment, in, inter alia, digital contexts, in order to monitor all forms of such violence, such as data on the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim and geographical location, with the involvement of national statistical offices and, where appropriate, in partnership with other actors, including law enforcement agencies, in order to ensure high-quality, reliable and timely disaggregated data and gender statistics to effectively review and implement laws, policies, strategies and preventive and protective measures, while ensuring and maintaining the privacy and the confidentiality of the victims;

Urges the international community, including the United Nations system and, as appropriate, regional and subregional organizations, to support national efforts to promote gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in order to enhance international efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls, through, inter alia, official development assistance, other appropriate assistance as well as South-South and triangular cooperation, such as facilitating the sharing of guidelines, methodologies, lessons learned and best practices, taking into account national priorities;

Stresses the need to continue to take and strengthen the measures necessary to ensure that no individual working within the United Nations system, including its agencies, funds, programmes and entities, is involved in sexual harassment and abuse, too often perpetrated against those affected by humanitarian crises, and calling upon the United Nations system to intensify its efforts in this regard to ensure zero tolerance for any kind of violence;

Underscores the critical importance of protecting all persons affected by humanitarian crises, in particular women and children, from any form of sexual exploitation and abuse, including those perpetrated by humanitarian personnel and those taking place in the digital environment, welcomes the determination of the Secretary-General to fully implement the United Nations policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, stresses that victims and survivors should be at the core of such efforts, notes the six core principles relating to sexual exploitation and abuse adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, and encourages Member States to make greater efforts to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable;

Stresses that, within the United Nations system, adequate resources should be assigned to UN-Women and other bodies, specialized agencies, funds and programmes responsible for the promotion of gender equality, the empowerment of women and the human rights of women and girls and to efforts throughout the United Nations system to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls, including sexual harassment, calls upon the United Nations system to make the necessary support and resources available, and takes note with appreciation in this regard of the contribution of the Spotlight initiative;

Also stresses the importance of the Secretary-General’s Global Database on Violence against Women, expresses its appreciation to all those States that have provided the Database with information regarding, inter alia, their national policies and legal frameworks aimed at eliminating violence against women and girls 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;

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 prevent and eliminate sexual harassment;

Requests the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences to submit an annual report to the General Assembly at its eightieth and eighty-first sessions;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its eighty-first 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 77/193 and the present resolution, including on their assistance to States in their efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls;

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 sixty-ninth and seventieth sessions, including information provided by the United Nations bodies, funds and programmes and the specialized agencies on recent follow-up activities to implement resolutions 75/161 and 77/193 and the present resolution, and urges United Nations bodies, entities, funds and programmes and the specialized agencies to contribute promptly to that report;

Decides to continue its consideration of the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls at its eighty-first session under the item entitled “Advancement of women”.

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