Traffic in Women and Girls

Calls upon Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination and regional and international organizations, as appropriate, to implement the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women¹⁵ by:

Invites Governments to accord standard minimum humanitarian treatment to trafficked persons, consistent with human rights standards;

Also invites Governments, with the support of the United Nations, to formulate manuals for the training of personnel who receive and/or hold in temporary custody victims of gender-based violence, including trafficking, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of victims;

Encourages, in this regard, relevant United Nations organizations and bodies, including the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to contribute to the preparation of guidelines for the use of Governments in the elaboration of their manuals, in cooperation with all relevant intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, including those concerned with traumatic stress, taking into account existing research material or studies on the subject;

Calls upon all Governments to criminalize trafficking in women and girls in all its forms and 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 these practices are not penalized, and to penalize persons in authority found guilty of sexually assaulting victims of trafficking in their custody;

Urges Governments concerned to support comprehensive practical approaches by the international community to assist women and children victims of transnational trafficking to return home and to be reintegrated in their home societies;

Invites relevant intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to provide advisory services to Governments, upon their request, in planning and setting up rehabilitation programmes for victims of trafficking and in training personnel who will be directly involved in the implementation of those programmes;

Encourages Governments, institutions and non-governmental organizations to take preventive and assistance measures, including by establishing helplines to enable victims or potential victims of trafficking to seek assistance, and to provide targeted training to those groups dealing with this problem, including law enforcement and judicial personnel, using as far as possible female police officers to assist victims;

Invites the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in addressing the obstacles to the realization of the human rights of women, in particular through his contacts with the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences and the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, to include the traffic in women and girls among his priority concerns;

Invites States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child to include information and statistics on trafficking in women and girls as part of their national reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, taking into account the general recommendation of the Committee, and to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, respectively;

Encourages the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality to continue to address the issue as part of the integrated follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women;

Encourages all Governments to develop methodologies and to collect national information, including statistical data, on trafficking in women and girls in countries with special vulnerability;

Encourages countries with special vulnerability to conduct campaigns designed to increase public awareness of the problem;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-second session on the implementation of the present resolution.