Trafficking in Women and Girls

A/RES/67/145View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

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

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 subjects does this mandate have?

11 subjects

Crime Prevention Crime Victims Forced Labour Forced Prostitution Gender Equality Girls Sex Crimes Sex Tourism Trafficking in Persons Women Women's Rights

What’s in this document?

39 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General,¹³ which provides information on measures by States and activities within the United Nations system to tackle trafficking in women and girls;

¹³A/67/170.

Also takes note with appreciation of the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on trafficking in persons, especially women and children,¹⁴ which examines the existing international legal framework and standards applicable to States and businesses, in addition to non-binding codes of conduct and principles adopted by businesses, as part of efforts to prevent and combat human trafficking;

¹⁴A/67/261.

Urges Member States that have not yet done so to consider ratifying or acceding to, as a matter of priority, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized CrimeError: Reference source not found and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,Error: Reference source not found taking into consideration the central role of those instruments in the fight against trafficking in persons, and urges States parties to those instruments to implement them fully and effectively;

Urges Member States to consider signing and ratifying and States parties to implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against WomenError: Reference source not found and the Optional Protocol thereto,Error: Reference source not found the Convention on the Rights of the ChildError: Reference source not found and the Optional Protocols thereto,¹⁵ and the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families,¹⁶ as well as the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29),¹⁷ the Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81),¹⁸ the Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97),¹⁹ the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111),²⁰ the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138),²¹ the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143),²² the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181),²³ the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182),²⁴ and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), of the International Labour Organization;

¹⁵United Nations, Treaty Series, vols. 2171 and 2173, No. 27531; and resolution 66/138, annex.

¹⁶United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2220, No. 39481.

¹⁷Ibid., vol. 39, No. 612.

¹⁸Ibid., vol. 54, No. 792.

¹⁹Ibid., vol. 120, No. 1616.

²⁰Ibid., vol. 362, No. 5181.

²¹Ibid., vol. 1015, No. 14862.

²²Ibid., vol. 1120, No. 17426.

²³Ibid., vol. 2115, No. 36794.

²⁴Ibid., vol. 2133, No. 37245.

Urges Member States, the United Nations and other international, regional and subregional organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations, the private sector and the media, to fully and effectively implement the relevant provisions of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons²⁵ and the activities outlined therein;

²⁵Resolution 64/293.

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 further enhance their efforts and cooperation, including by sharing their knowledge, technical expertise and best practices as widely as possible;

Encourages the United Nations system to mainstream, as appropriate, the issue of trafficking in persons, especially women and girls, into its broader policies and programmes aimed at addressing economic and social development, human rights, the rule of law, good governance, education, health and natural disaster and post-conflict reconstruction;

Welcomes the focus given by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) to ending violence against women and to increasing women’s access to economic opportunities, as well as its work on building effective partnerships for the empowerment of women, which will contribute to the efforts to combat trafficking in persons;

Calls upon Governments to address, with a view to eliminating, the demand that fosters the trafficking of women and girls for all forms of exploitation and in this regard to enhance preventive measures, including legislative measures, to deter exploiters of trafficked persons, as well as ensure their accountability;

Also calls upon Governments to strengthen measures aimed at empowering women and girls by, inter alia, enhancing their participation in society, including through education and skills training, and to take further appropriate measures to address the increasing rate of homelessness of and inadequate housing for women in order to reduce their vulnerability to being trafficked;

Further calls upon Governments to take appropriate measures to address the factors that increase vulnerability to being trafficked, including poverty and gender inequality, as well as other factors that encourage the particular problem of trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriage, forced labour and organ removal, in order to prevent and 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, including public officials engaging in or facilitating human trafficking, through, as appropriate, criminal and/or civil measures;

Calls upon Governments, the international community and all other organizations and entities that deal with conflict, post-conflict, disaster and other emergency situations to address the heightened vulnerability of women and girls to trafficking and exploitation and associated gender-based violence;

Urges Governments to devise, enforce and strengthen effective gender- and age-sensitive measures to combat and eliminate all forms of trafficking in women and girls, including for sexual and economic exploitation, as part of a comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy that integrates a human rights perspective, and to draw up, as appropriate, national action plans in this regard;

Also urges Governments, in cooperation with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, to support and allocate resources to strengthen preventive action, in particular education for women and men, as well as for girls and boys, on gender equality, self-respect and mutual respect, and campaigns, carried out in collaboration with civil society, to increase public awareness of the issue at the national and grass-roots levels;

Reiterates the importance of continued coordination among, inter alia, the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, the Special Rapporteur of the Council on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the Special Rapporteur of the Council on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, in order to avoid unnecessary duplication in their activities in fulfilment of their mandates;

Encourages Governments to take appropriate measures to eliminate sex tourism demand, especially for children, through all possible preventive actions;

Urges Governments to develop educational and training programmes and policies and to consider, as appropriate, enacting legislation aimed at preventing sex tourism and trafficking, giving special emphasis to the protection of young women and children;

Encourages Member States to strengthen national programmes and to engage in bilateral, subregional, regional and international cooperation, including by forging regional initiatives or plans of action,²⁶ to address the problem of trafficking in persons through, inter alia, the enhancement of information-sharing, sex- and age-disaggregated data, specific data collection and other technical capacities, and mutual legal assistance, as well as the combating of corruption and laundering of proceeds derived from trafficking, including for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, and to ensure, as appropriate, that such agreements and initiatives are particularly responsive to the problem of trafficking as it affects women and girls;

²⁶Such as the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking, 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 most recently in the European Union plan on best practices, standards and procedures for combating and preventing trafficking in human beings, adopted in December 2005, the activities of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution, the Organization of American States Meeting of National Authorities on Trafficking in Persons, and the activities of 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, commercial sexual exploitation and abuse, sex tourism and forced labour, and to bring to justice and punish the offenders and intermediaries involved, including public officials involved with trafficking in persons, 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, as well as to penalize persons in authority found guilty of sexually assaulting victims of trafficking in their custody;

Urges Governments to take all appropriate measures to ensure that victims of trafficking are not penalized or prosecuted for acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked and that they do not suffer from revictimization as a result of actions taken by Government authorities, and encourages Governments to prevent, within their legal framework and in accordance with national policies, victims of trafficking in persons from being prosecuted for their illegal entry or residence;

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, as appropriate, including non-governmental organizations, to encourage the exchange of information and to report on data, root causes, factors and trends in trafficking in persons, especially women and girls, and to include data on victims of trafficking disaggregated by sex and age;

Encourages Governments and relevant United Nations bodies, from within existing resources, to take appropriate measures to raise public awareness of the issue of trafficking in persons, particularly women and girls, including the factors that make women and girls vulnerable to trafficking; to discourage, with a view to eliminating, the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation, including sexual exploitation and forced labour; to publicize the laws, regulations and penalties relating to this issue; and to emphasize that trafficking is a serious crime;

Calls upon concerned Governments to allocate resources, as appropriate, to provide access to appropriate programmes for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance in a language that they can understand 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 civil society organizations, to undertake or strengthen campaigns aimed at clarifying opportunities, limitations, rights and responsibilities with respect to migration, as well as information on the risks of irregular migration and the ways and means used by traffickers, so as to enable women to make informed decisions and to prevent them from becoming victims of trafficking;

Also encourages Governments to review and strengthen, as appropriate, the enforcement of relevant labour and other laws within their territories or jurisdictions that are aimed at, or have the effect of, requiring business enterprises, including recruitment agencies, to prevent and combat human trafficking in supply chains, and to periodically assess the adequacy of such laws and address any gaps;

Invites the business sector to consider the adoption of ethical codes of conduct to ensure decent work and to prevent any form of exploitative practices that foster trafficking;

Encourages Governments to intensify collaboration with non-governmental organizations to develop and implement gender- and age-sensitive 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;

Urges Governments to provide or strengthen training for, and to raise awareness among, law enforcement, judicial, immigration and other relevant officials on the prevention and combating of trafficking in persons, including the sexual exploitation of women and girls, and in this regard calls upon Governments to ensure that the treatment of victims of trafficking, especially by law enforcement officials, immigration officers, consular officials, social workers and other first response officials, is conducted with full respect for the human rights of those victims and with gender and age sensitivity and observes the principles of non-discrimination, including the prohibition of racial discrimination;

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 supported and assisted, as appropriate, in making complaints to the police or other authorities without fear and being available when required by the criminal justice system, and to ensure that during this time they have access to gender- and age-sensitive protection and, as appropriate, social, medical, financial and legal assistance, including the possibility of obtaining compensation for damages suffered;

Also invites Governments to intensify efforts aimed at the speedy disposition of cases of trafficking in persons and, in cooperation with, inter alia, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, to devise, enforce and strengthen systems and mechanisms for combating trafficking in persons;

Further invites Governments to encourage media providers, including Internet service providers, to adopt or strengthen self-regulatory measures to promote the responsible use of media, particularly the Internet, with a view to eliminating the exploitation of women and children, in particular girls, which could foster trafficking;

Invites the business sector, in particular the tourism, travel and telecommunications industries, relevant recruitment agencies and 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 dangers of trafficking, the means used by traffickers, the rights of trafficked persons and the services available to victims of trafficking;

Stresses the need for the systematic collection of sex- and age-disaggregated data 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;

Invites Governments, United Nations bodies, agencies and special mechanisms, 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, when necessary, and other intergovernmental organizations, taking into account best practices, to formulate training manuals and other informational materials and provide training for law enforcement, judicial and other relevant officers, and medical and support personnel, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of women and girl victims;

Encourages Governments and relevant intergovernmental bodies and international organizations to ensure that military, peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel deployed in conflict, post-conflict and other emergency situations are provided with training on conduct that does not promote, facilitate or exploit trafficking in women and girls, including for sexual exploitation, and to raise the awareness of such personnel of the potential risks to victims of conflict and other emergency situations, including natural disasters, of being trafficked;

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 Rights²⁷ 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;

²⁷Resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.

Invites States to continue to contribute to the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and to the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session a report that compiles information on successful interventions and strategies, as well as the gaps, in addressing the gender dimensions of the problem of trafficking in persons and provides recommendations on the strengthening of human rights-based, gender- and age-sensitive approaches within comprehensive and balanced efforts to address trafficking in persons.

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?

Table of contents