Trafficking in Women and Girls

A/RES/59/166View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 98 Advancement of women, published in 2005.

What other versions does this mandate have?

12 versions · 2003–2024

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

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2024	A/RES/79/154	Trafficking in women and girls	6,804	84%Compare
2022	A/RES/77/194	Trafficking in women and girls	6,506	81%Compare
2020	A/RES/75/158	Trafficking in women and girls	5,921	99%Compare
2019	A/RES/73/146	Trafficking in women and girls	5,890	80%Compare
2017	A/RES/71/167	Trafficking in women and girls	5,495	77%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

11 reports · 2004–2026

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2026	A/81/335	Trafficking in women and girls : the impact of technology report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/79/154
2024	A/79/322	Trafficking in women and girls : strengthening access to justice for victim-survivors report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/77/194
2022	A/77/292	Trafficking in women and girls : crises as a risk multiplier report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/75/158
2020	A/75/289	Trafficking in women and girls report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/73/146
2018	A/73/263	Trafficking in women and girls report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/71/167

What’s in this document?

26 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General;¹¹

¹¹A/59/185 and Corr.1.

Welcomes the efforts of Governments, United Nations bodies and agencies and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to address the particular 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 appointment of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on trafficking in persons, especially women and children;

Urges Governments to take appropriate measures to address the root factors, including poverty and gender inequality, as well as external factors that encourage the particular problem of trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriage and forced labour, in order to eliminate such trafficking, 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, including for sexual exploitation, as part of a comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy that integrates a gender and human rights perspective, and to draw up, as appropriate, national action plans in this regard;

Further urges Governments to consider signing and ratifying and States parties to implement relevant United Nations legal instruments such as the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime4 and the Protocols thereto, in particular the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,5 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,¹² the Convention on the Rights of the Child,¹³ the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women2 and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography,1 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;

¹²United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1249, No. 20378.

¹³Ibid., vol. 1577, No. 27531.

Encourages Member States to conclude bilateral, subregional, regional and international agreements, as well as to undertake initiatives, including regional initiatives,¹⁴ to address the problem of trafficking in persons, and to ensure that such agreements and initiatives pay particular attention to the problem of trafficking in women and girls;

¹⁴Such as the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, the Action Plan for the Asia-Pacific region of the Asian Regional Initiative against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (see A/C.3/55/3, annex), 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 (see SN 200/99; available from www.europa.eu.int), and the activities of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Labour Organization and the International Organization for Migration in this field.

Calls upon all Governments to criminalize all forms of trafficking in persons, recognizing its increasing occurrence for purposes of sexual exploitation and sex tourism, and 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 also 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 strengthen international cooperation aimed at preventing and combating corruption and the laundering of proceeds derived from trafficking, including for purposes of commercialized sexual exploitation;

Also 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 in persons, particularly in women and girls, including to address the demand side of the problem and to publicize the laws, regulations and penalties relating to this issue, and to emphasize that trafficking is a crime, in order to eliminate the demand, including by sex tourists, recognizing that the majority of trafficked victims are women and girls;

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, including for HIV/AIDS, and by taking measures to cooperate with intergovernmental and 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, as well as all measures taken against trafficking in persons, in particular those that affect the victims of such trafficking, pay particular attention to the needs of women and girls and 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, which may include measures that offer victims the possibility of obtaining compensation for damage suffered;

Invites Governments to take steps to ensure that criminal justice procedures and witness protection programmes are sensitive to the particular situation of trafficked women and girls and that they are enabled 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 they 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 persons, 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, including through the dissemination by the media of information regarding the rights of trafficked persons and services available to victims of trafficking;

Stresses the need for systematic data collection and comprehensive studies at both the national and the international levels and the development of common methodologies and internationally defined indicators to make it possible to develop relevant and comparable figures, and encourages Governments to enhance information-sharing and data-collection capacity as a way of promoting cooperation to combat the trafficking problem;

Urges Governments to strengthen national programmes to combat trafficking in persons, especially women and girls, through increased 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, with the support of the United Nations as required, and other intergovernmental organizations, taking into account best practices, to formulate training manuals for law enforcement and medical personnel and judicial officers, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of women and girl victims;

Urges Governments to provide or strengthen training for law enforcement, immigration and other relevant officials in the prevention and combating of trafficking in persons, including the sexual exploitation of women and girls, 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 includes human rights and child- and gender-sensitive perspectives, 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 Rights¹⁵ 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;

¹⁵Resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.

Requests the Secretary-General to compile, as reference and guidance, successful interventions and strategies in addressing the various dimensions of the particular problem of trafficking in women and children, in particular girls, based on reports, research and other materials from within the United Nations, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 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 sixty-first session.

Trafficking in Women and Girls

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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