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The General Assembly, Recalling also all relevant United Nations conferences and the Declaration and Deeply concerned about discrimination against the girl child and the violation of the rights of the girl child, which often result in less access for girls to education, nutrition, physical and mental health care and in girls enjoying fewer of the rights, opportunities and benefits of childhood and adolescence than boys and often being subjected to various forms of cultural, social, sexual and economic exploitation and to violence and harmful practices, such as female infanticide, incest, early marriage, prenatal sex selection and female genital mutilation, Recognizing the need to achieve gender equality so as to ensure a just and equitable world for girls, Deeply concerned that, in situations of poverty, war and armed conflict, girl children are among the victims most affected and that thus their potential for full development is limited, Concerned that the girl child has furthermore become a victim of sexually transmitted diseases and the human immunodeficiency virus, which affects the quality of her life and leaves her open to further discrimination, Reaffirming the equal rights of women and men as enshrined, inter alia, in the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women4 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Reaffirming also the political declaration6 and further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,7 adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-third special session, entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”, Reaffirming further the Dakar Framework for Action adopted at the World Education Forum, 15. Urges States to formulate comprehensive, multidisciplinary and coordinated national plans, programmes or strategies to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, which should be widely disseminated and should provide targets and timetables for implementation, as well as effective domestic enforcement procedures through the establishment of monitoring mechanisms involving all parties concerned, including consultations with women’s organizations, giving attention to the recommendations relating to the girl child of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences;
Recalling its resolution 54/148 of 17 December 1999 and all previous relevant resolutions, including the agreed conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women, in particular those relevant to the girl child,
Agenda for Action adopted by the World Congress against Commercial Sexual xploitation of Children, held at Stockholm from 27 to 31 August 1996,1 as well as the outcome documents of the recent five-year reviews of the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development,
1. Stresses the need for full and urgent implementation of the rights of the girl child as guaranteed to her under all human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child5 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,4 as well as the need for universal ratification of those instruments;
2. Urges States to consider signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women;
3. Welcomes the adoption of the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict10 and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography,11 and invites States to consider signing and ratifying the Optional Protocols as a matter of priority with a view to their entry into force as soon as possible;
4. Also welcomes the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative launched by the Secretary-General at the World Education Forum;
5. Urges all Governments and the United Nations system to strengthen efforts bilaterally and with international organizations and private sector donors in order to achieve the goals of the World Education Forum, in particular that of eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and for the implementation of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative as a means of reaching this goal, and reaffirms the commitment contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration
6. Calls upon all States to take measures to address the obstacles that continue to affect the achievement of the goals set forth in the Beijing Platform for Action,13 as contained in paragraph 33 of the further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,7 where appropriate, including the strengthening of national mechanisms to implement policies and programmes for the girl child and, in some cases, to enhance coordination among responsible institutions for the realization of the human rights of girls, as indicated in the further actions and initiatives;
7. Urges all States to take all necessary measures and to institute legal reforms to ensure the full and equal enjoyment by the girl child of all human rights and undamental freedoms, to take effective action against violations of those rights and freedoms and to base programmes and policies for the girl child on the rights of the child;
8. Urges States to enact and enforce strictly laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses, to enact and enforce strictly laws concerning the minimum legal age of consent and the minimum age for marriage and to raise the minimum age for marriage where necessary;
9. Urges all States to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women as well as the commitment to implement the Beijing Platform for Action;
10. Also urges all States to enact and enforce legislation to protect girls from all forms of violence, including female infanticide and prenatal sex selection, female genital mutilation, rape, domestic violence, incest, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, child prostitution and child pornography, and to develop age-appropriate safe and confidential programmes and medical, social and psychological support services to assist girls who are subjected to violence;
11. Calls upon all States and international and non-governmental organizations, individually and collectively, to implement further the Beijing Platform for Action, in particular the strategic objectives relating to the girl child and including the further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action;
12. Urges States to take special measures for the protection of war-affected girls and in particular to protect them from sexually transmitted diseases, such as human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and genderbased violence, including rape and sexual abuse, torture, sexual exploitation, abduction and forced labour, paying special attention to refugee and displaced girls, and to take into account the special needs of the war-affected girl child in the delivery of humanitarian assistance and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes;
13. Urges all States and the international community to respect, protect and promote the rights of the child, taking into account the particular vulnerabilities of the girl child in pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict situations, and calls for special initiatives designed to address all of the rights and needs of war-affected girls;
14. Welcomes the holding of the International Conference on War-Affected Children at Winnipeg, Canada, from 10 to 17 September 2000, and takes note with appreciation of the Winnipeg Agenda for War-Affected Children
16. Calls upon Governments, civil society, including the media, and nongovernmental organizations to promote human rights education and the full respect for and enjoyment of the human rights of the girl child, inter alia, through the translation, production and dissemination of age-appropriate information material on those rights to all sectors of society, in particular to children;
17. Requests the Secretary-General, as Chairman of the Administrative Committee on Coordination, to ensure that all organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, individually and collectively, in particular the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, take into account the rights and the particular needs of the girl child in the country programme of cooperation in accordance with the national priorities, including through the United Nations Development Assistance Framework;
18. Requests all human rights treaty bodies, special procedures and other human rights mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights and its Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights to adopt regularly and systematically a gender perspective in the implementation of their mandates and to include in their reports information on the qualitative analysis of violations of the human rights of women and girls, and encourages the strengthening of cooperation and coordination in that regard;
19. Calls upon States and international and non-governmental organizations to mobilize all necessary resources, support and efforts to realize the goals, strategic objectives and actions set out in the Beijing Platform for Action and the further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action;
20. Stresses the importance of a substantive assessment of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action with a life-cycle perspective so as to identify gaps and obstacles in the implementation process and to develop further actions for the achievement of the goals of the Platform;
21. Welcomes the convening of the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children at Yokohama, Japan, from 17 to 20 December 2001, and invites Member States and observers to participate in the Congress;
22. Encourages the regional commissions and other regional organizations to carry out activities in support of the preparations for the Second World Congress;
23. Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that a gender perspective and the needs and rights of the girl child are integrated into the preparatory work for the special session of the General Assembly on the follow-up to the World Summit for Children in 2001, inter alia, by providing the General Assembly with a comprehensive report drawing on the experiences and outcomes of the five-year reviews of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Fourth World Conference on Women and the World Summit for Social Development, and the World Education Forum.
81st plenary meeting
4 December 2000