Trafficking in Women and Girls

A/RES/75/158View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 28 Advancement of women, published in 2020.

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?

7 subjects

Crime Prevention Crime Victims Girls Sex Crimes Trafficking in Persons Women Women's Rights

What’s in this document?

52 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General,¹⁷ which provides information on measures by States and activities within the United Nations system to tackle trafficking in women and girls;

¹⁷A/75/289.

Also takes note with appreciation of the information submitted by Member States and United Nations entities on measures and activities undertaken to combat trafficking in women and girls, and urges Member States and United Nations entities that have not done so to submit the requested information for inclusion in the report of the Secretary-General;

Takes note of the reports of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on trafficking in persons, especially women and children;¹⁸

¹⁸A/75/169 and A/HRC/44/45.

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 Crime and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, taking into consideration the central role of those instruments in the fight against human trafficking, 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 Women and the Optional Protocol thereto, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocols thereto¹⁹ and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families,²⁰ as well as the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)²¹ and the Protocol thereto, the Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81),²² the Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97),²³ the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111),²⁴ the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138),²⁵ the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143),²⁶ the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181),²⁷ the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182),²⁸ and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189),²⁹ of the International Labour Organization;

¹⁹United Nations, Treaty Series, vols. 2171 and 2173, No. 27531; and resolution 66/138, annex.

²⁰United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2220, No. 39481.

²¹Ibid., vol. 39, No. 612.

²²Ibid., vol. 54, No. 792.

²³Ibid., vol. 120, No. 1616.

²⁴Ibid., vol. 362, No. 5181.

²⁵Ibid., vol. 1015, No. 14862.

²⁶Ibid., vol. 1120, No. 17426.

²⁷Ibid., vol. 2115, No. 36794.

²⁸Ibid., vol. 2133, No. 37245.

²⁹Ibid., vol. 2955, No. 51379.

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 Persons³⁰ and the activities outlined therein;

³⁰Resolution 64/293.

Welcomes the efforts of Governments, United Nations bodies and agencies and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to prevent and 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, and encourages Member States to strengthen cooperation among all relevant actors to identify and disrupt illicit financial flows stemming from trafficking in women and girls;

Takes note with appreciation of the outcome document of the Regional Ministerial Conference on Human Trafficking and Smuggling in the Horn of Africa, known as the Khartoum Declaration, and calls for its effective implementation, including through technical cooperation and capacity-building, by the United Nations and the international community;

Encourages the Commission on the Status of Women to consider addressing the needs of, inter alia, women and girls subjected to human trafficking at its sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth sessions, within the framework of the priority themes;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations system and other stakeholders to observe the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, in the context of the need to raise awareness of the situation of victims of human trafficking and for the promotion and protection of their rights;

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

Calls upon Governments to intensify their efforts to prevent and 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 put in place or to enhance preventive measures, including legislative and punitive measures to deter exploiters of trafficked persons, as well as ensure their accountability;

Takes note of the basic principles on the right to an effective remedy for victims of trafficking in persons;³¹

³¹A/69/269, annex.

Calls upon Governments to strengthen measures aimed at achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls by, inter alia, enhancing their participation and leadership in society, including through education, economic empowerment and promoting an increase in the number of women assuming decision-making roles in both the public and private sectors, 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 and, in that regard, to improve the collection and use of data disaggregated by sex, age and disability to inform such measures;

Also calls upon Governments to take appropriate preventive measures to address the underlying causes as well as risk factors that increase vulnerability to human trafficking, including poverty, gender inequality, gender stereotypes and negative social norms, including discrimination and violence against women and girls, including impunity for such violence, and the persistent demand that fosters all forms of trafficking and the goods and services produced as a result of human trafficking, as well as other factors that encourage the particular problem of trafficking in women and girls for exploitation, including in 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 punishing perpetrators, including public officials engaging in or facilitating human trafficking, through, as appropriate, criminal and 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 human trafficking and exploitation and associated gender-based violence, inter alia, that perpetuated by traffickers in digital spaces, and to prevent the trafficking of affected women and girls through all such national, regional and international initiatives;

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 to ensure that the prevention of and responses to human trafficking continue to take into account the specific needs of women and girls and their participation in and contribution to all phases of preventing and responding to human trafficking, especially in addressing specific forms of exploitation, such as sexual exploitation;

Further urges Governments, in cooperation with intergovernmental, non-governmental and private sector 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 human rights, gender equality, self-respect and mutual respect, and campaigns carried out in collaboration with civil society and the private sector to increase public awareness of the issue at the national and grass-roots levels, including awareness-raising campaigns against human trafficking and slavery, including modern slavery, targeted at groups that are at increased risk of becoming victims of human trafficking, as well as at those who may fuel the demand that contributes to human trafficking;

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

Urges Governments to strengthen measures to eliminate sex tourism demand, especially for children, through all possible preventive actions, including legislative measures and other relevant policies and programmes, and to develop age-appropriate educational and training programmes and policies aimed at preventing sex tourism and human trafficking, giving special emphasis to the protection of young women and children;

Encourages the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Tourism Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to promote their global campaign urging travellers to support the fight against human trafficking, especially trafficking in women and girls;

Calls upon Member States to take into consideration the challenges presented by new methods of recruiting victims of human trafficking, such as the misuse of the Internet by human traffickers, in particular for recruiting children, to take measures to develop targeted awareness-raising campaigns, including for law enforcement, front-line service providers and at-risk industries, to identify the signs of human trafficking, and to develop specialized training for law enforcement and criminal justice practitioners;

Encourages Member States to establish or strengthen national programmes and to engage in bilateral, subregional, regional and international cooperation, including by forging regional initiatives or plans of action,³² to address the problem of human trafficking through, inter alia, the enhancement of information-sharing, data disaggregated by sex and age, specific data collection and other technical capacities and mutual legal assistance, as well as the combating of corruption and laundering of proceeds derived from human trafficking, including for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, and to ensure, as appropriate, that such agreements and initiatives are particularly responsive to the problem of human trafficking as it affects women and girls;

³²Such 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 Association of Southeast Asian Nations Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, 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, the Agreement on the Cooperation of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Combating Trafficking in Persons, Human Organs and Tissues, the Inter-American Programme for the Prevention and Eradication of Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Smuggling of and Trafficking in Children, 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 human trafficking, recognizing its increasing occurrence for the purpose 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 human trafficking, 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 the due process of law, as well as to penalize persons in authority found guilty of sexually assaulting victims of human trafficking in their custody;

Urges Governments, in accordance with their respective legal systems, to take all appropriate measures, including through policies and legislation, to ensure that victims of human trafficking are protected from prosecution or punishment for acts those victims have been compelled to commit as a direct consequence of having been subjected to human trafficking and that the victims 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 human trafficking from being prosecuted or punished as a direct consequence of their illegal entry or residence;

Invites Governments to consider establishing or strengthening a national mechanism, with the participation of civil society, as appropriate, including non-governmental organizations, such as women’s organizations, and survivors of human trafficking, to ensure a holistic and coordinated approach to anti-trafficking policies and measures, to encourage the exchange of information and to report on data, underlying causes, factors and trends in human trafficking, especially trafficking in women and girls, and to include data on victims of human trafficking disaggregated by sex, age and other relevant factors;

Invites the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to continue to cooperate with international, regional and national mechanisms to combat human trafficking, in consultation with Governments, relevant treaty bodies, special procedures, the specialized agencies, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, including non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions and other sources, including victims of human trafficking or their representatives, as appropriate;

Encourages Governments and relevant United Nations bodies, from within existing resources, to take appropriate measures to raise public awareness of the issue of human trafficking, particularly trafficking in women and girls, including the factors that make women and girls vulnerable to human 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 human 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 human trafficking, including sexual and reproductive health-care services that include affordable treatment, care and support services for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections, free of stigma and discrimination, as well as comprehensive information and voluntary counselling, and to take measures to cooperate with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims in ways that protect their privacy and identity;

Calls upon Governments to promote the empowerment of women and girls, including survivors of human trafficking, in all stages of humanitarian response and to consider providing adequate access to redress;

Encourages Governments, in line with their obligations under international law, to prevent, combat and eradicate human trafficking in the context of international migration, including by identifying and supporting victims of human trafficking, and to cooperate with relevant stakeholders to undertake or strengthen campaigns to inform migrants, including migrant women, of the risks associated with human trafficking;

Strongly urges Governments to ensure coherence between the laws on and measures responding to migration, labour and human trafficking to protect the human rights of migrant women and girls throughout the migration and employment process as well as the repatriation process, when applicable, and to provide effective protection against human trafficking;

Invites States, together with relevant United Nations entities, to undertake further research into the links between migration and human trafficking to guide the development of age- and gender-sensitive policies and programmes that address the vulnerability of women and girl migrants;

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 human trafficking;

Encourages Governments to intensify collaboration with non-governmental organizations, including women’s organizations, to develop and implement gender- and age-sensitive programmes for effective counselling, training and reintegration into society of victims of human trafficking and programmes that provide shelter and helplines to victims or potential victims in ways that protect their privacy and identity;

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 human trafficking, including the sexual exploitation of women and girls, and including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in this regard calls upon Governments to ensure that the treatment of victims of human trafficking, especially by law enforcement officials, immigration officers, consular officials, social workers, health service providers 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 Member States to provide training for law enforcement and border control officials, as well as medical personnel, in identifying potential cases of human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal;

Invites Governments to take steps to ensure that criminal justice procedures and witness protection programmes are sensitive to the particular situation of women and girls subjected to human trafficking and that they are supported and assisted, as appropriate, in making complaints to the police or other authorities, without fear and with due regard for the protection of their privacy and their identity, and are available, when required, to 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 human trafficking and, in cooperation with, inter alia, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, to devise, enforce and strengthen systems and mechanisms for combating human trafficking;

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 human trafficking;

Encourages Governments to develop and implement strategies that promote safe access to media and to information and communications technologies in order to prevent and eradicate trafficking in women and girls, including increasing women’s and girls’ digital literacy and access to information;

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 human trafficking, the means used by traffickers, the rights of persons subjected to human trafficking and the services available to them;

Stresses the need for the systematic collection of data disaggregated by sex, age and other relevant factors and comprehensive studies at both the national and the international levels, and in this regard takes note of the publication of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, prepared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 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 human trafficking;

Invites Governments, United Nations bodies, agencies and special mechanisms, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and the private sector to continue 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 to provide training for law enforcement, judicial and other relevant officials and medical and support personnel, with a view to sensitizing them to the special needs of women and girl victims of human trafficking;

Calls upon Governments, and encourages 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 about the potential risks that victims of conflict and other emergency situations, including natural disasters, face of being subjected to human trafficking;

Invites States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,³³ the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights³⁴ and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families to include information and disaggregated statistics on trafficking in women and girls as part of their national reports to the respective committees, as applicable;

³³See resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.

³⁴Ibid.

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 seventy-seventh 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 human trafficking and provides recommendations on the strengthening of human rights-based, victim-centred and gender- and age-sensitive approaches within comprehensive and balanced efforts to address human trafficking, including in the prosecution of traffickers and protection of victims, and including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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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