Traffic in Women and Girls

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 105 Advancement of women, published in 1998.

What other versions does this mandate have?

6 versions · 1995–2001

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/55/67

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2001	A/RES/55/67	Traffic in women and girls	2,110	40%Compare
1999	A/RES/53/116	Traffic in women and girls	1,750	36%Compare
1998	A/RES/52/98	Traffic in women and girls	1,305	38%Compare
1997	A/RES/51/66	Traffic in women and girls	1,272	29%Compare
1996	A/RES/50/167	Traffic in women and girls	1,116	27%Compare

What subjects does this mandate have?

10 subjects

Data Collection Forced Prostitution Gender-Based Violence Girls Illicit Traffic Manuals Prostitution Training Programmes Women Women's Rights

What’s in this document?

20 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on the traffic in women and girls;¹⁴

¹⁴A/52/355.

Welcomes national, regional and international efforts to implement the recommendations of the World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children,¹⁵ and calls upon Governments to take further measures in that regard;

¹⁵World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Stockholm, 27-31 August 1996, Final Report of the Congress, two volumes (Stockholm, Government of Sweden, January 1997).

Also welcomes actions undertaken by Governments to implement the provisions on trafficking in women and girls contained in the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women¹⁶ and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights,8 and calls upon Governments, particularly those of countries of origin, transit and destination, as well as regional and international organizations, as appropriate, to undertake immediate action or to strengthen efforts in their implementation by:

¹⁶Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.

Considering the ratification and enforcement of international conventions on trafficking in persons and on slavery;

Taking 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 marriage and forced labour, so as 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;

Stepping up cooperation and concerted action by all relevant law enforcement authorities and institutions with a view to dismantling national, regional and international networks in trafficking;

Allocating resources to provide comprehensive programmes designed to heal and rehabilitate into society victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance and confidential health care, and by taking measures to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims of trafficking;

Developing educational and training programmes and policies and considering enacting legislation to prevent sex tourism and trafficking, giving special emphasis to the protection of young women and children;

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

Urges concerned Governments 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 level, and for programmes which provide shelter and helplines to victims or potential victims;

Encourages Governments to develop systematic data-collection methods and to continuously update 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;

Invites Governments once again, with the support of the United Nations, to formulate training manuals for law enforcement and medical personnel and judicial officers who handle cases of trafficked women and girls, taking into account current research and materials on traumatic stress and gender-sensitive counselling techniques, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of victims;

Invites Governments and civil society, especially non-governmental organizations, to the extent consistent with freedom of expression, to promote the responsible use of new information technologies, in particular the Internet, to prevent trafficking in women and girls;

Invites States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women2 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child5 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;

Invites the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery of the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Commission on Human Rights to continue addressing, within their respective mandates, the problem of trafficking in women and girls as a priority concern and to recommend, in their reports, measures to combat such phenomena;

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;

Invites the Commission on the Status of Women, at its next session, to address the subject of the traffic in women and girls under the thematic issues on violence against women and the human rights of women;

Invites the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Human Rights, at their sessions in 1998, to address trafficking in women and girls in connection with the five-year review of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;1

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-third session on the implementation of the present resolution, in particular the implementation of the relevant provisions on trafficking in women and girls in the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents