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The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 60/141 of 16 December 2005 and all relevant Recalling all human rights and other instruments relevant to the rights of the Welcoming the opening for signature of the Convention on the Rights of Reaffirming the internationally agreed development goals, including the Reaffirming also the outcome document of the twenty-seventh special session A/RES/62/140 Reaffirming the Dakar Framework for Action, adopted at the World Education Welcoming the study on violence against children by the independent expert Recognizing that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the Recognizing also that girl children are often at greater risk of being exposed to Recognizing further that the empowerment of girls is key in breaking the cycle Deeply concerned about discrimination against the girl child and the violation Deeply concerned also that female genital mutilation is an irreparable, Deeply concerned further that, in situations of poverty, war and armed Emphasizing that increased access to education, including in the areas of Concerned by the increasing number of child-headed households, in Deeply concerned that early childbearing and limited access to sexual and Welcoming the holding of the commemorative high-level plenary meeting
resolutions, including the agreed conclusions of the Commission on the Status of
Women, in particular those relevant to the girl child,
Reaffirming the equal rights of women and men as enshrined in the Charter of
the United Nations,
child, in particular the girl child, including the Convention on the Rights of the
Child 1 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women2 and the Optional Protocols thereto,3
Persons with Disabilities, 4 particularly as it explicitly recognizes the specific
situation of girls with disabilities,
Millennium Development Goals, as well as the commitments relevant to the girl
child made at the 2005 World Summit,5
of the General Assembly on children, entitled “A world fit for children”, 6 the
Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS adopted at the twenty-sixth special
session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, entitled “Global Crisis – Global
Action”,7 and the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS of 2006,8
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1 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1577, No. 27531.
2 Ibid., vol. 1249, No. 20378.
3 Ibid., vols. 2171 and 2173, No. 27531; and ibid., vol. 2131, No. 20378.
4 Resolution 61/106, annex I.
5 See resolution 60/1.
6 Resolution S-27/2, annex.
7 Resolution S-26/2, annex.
8 Resolution 60/262, annex.
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Reaffirming further all other relevant outcomes of major United Nations
summits and conferences relevant to the girl child, as well as their five- and ten-year
reviews, including the Beijing Declaration9 and Platform for Action10 adopted at the
Fourth World Conference on Women, the outcome of the twenty-third special
session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality,
development and peace for the twenty-first century”,11 the Programme of Action of
the International Conference on Population and Development,12 the Programme of
Action of the World Summit for Social Development13 and the declaration adopted
by the Commission on the Status of Women at its forty-ninth session in 2005,14
Forum in 2000,15
appointed by the Secretary-General 16 and the in-depth study of the Secretary-
General on all forms of violence against women, 17 and taking note of the
recommendations contained therein,
world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in
particular for developing countries, and recognizing also that chronic poverty
remains the single biggest obstacle to meeting the needs of and promoting and
protecting the rights of children and that urgent national and international action is
therefore required to eliminate it,
and encountering various forms of discrimination and violence, and reaffirming the
need to achieve gender equality to ensure a just and equitable world for girls,
including through partnering with men and boys, as an important strategy for
advancing the rights of the girl child,
of discrimination and violence and in promoting and protecting the full and effective
enjoyment of their human rights, and further recognizing that empowering girls
requires the active support and engagement of their parents, legal guardians,
families, boys and men, as well as the wider community,
of the rights of the girl child, which often result in less access for girls to education,
nutrition and physical and mental health care, in girls enjoying fewer of the rights,
opportunities and benefits of childhood and adolescence than boys, and in leaving
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9 Report 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 I.
10 Ibid., annex II.
11 Resolution S-23/2, annex, and resolution S-23/3, annex.
12 Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September 1994
(United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.
13 Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6–12 March 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.8), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
14 See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2005, Supplement No. 7 and corrigendum (E/2005/27 and Corr.1), chap. I, sect. A; see also Economic and Social Council decision 2005/232.
15 See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Final Report of the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26–28 April 2000 (Paris, 2000).
16 See A/61/299 and A/62/209.
17 A/61/122 and Add.1 and Add.1/Corr.1.
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A/RES/62/140
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them more vulnerable than boys to the consequences of unprotected and premature
sexual relations and often being subjected to various forms of cultural, social, sexual
and economic exploitation and to violence, abuse, rape, incest, honour-related
crimes and harmful traditional practices, such as female infanticide, early marriage,
forced marriage, prenatal sex selection and female genital mutilation,
irreversible harmful practice that affects more than 130 million women and girls
alive today, and that each year a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing the
harmful procedure,
conflict, girl children are among those most affected and furthermore become the
victims of sexual violence, abuse and exploitation and sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV/AIDS, which have a serious impact on the quality of their lives and
leave them open to further discrimination, violence and neglect, thus limiting their
potential for full development,
sexual and reproductive health, for young people, especially girls, dramatically
lowers their vulnerability to preventable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS infection
and sexually transmitted diseases,
particular those headed by orphan girls, including those orphaned by the
HIV/AIDS pandemic,
reproductive health care, including in the area of emergency obstetric care, causes
high levels of obstetric fistula and maternal mortality and morbidity,
Convinced that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance reveal themselves in a differentiated manner for women and girls and
can be among the factors leading to a deterioration in their living conditions,
poverty, violence, multiple forms of discrimination and limitation or denial of their
human rights,
devoted to the follow-up to the outcome of the special session on children on 11 and
12 December 2007,
1. Stresses the need for full and urgent implementation of the rights of the
girl child as provided to her under human rights instruments, and urges States to
consider signing, ratifying or acceding to the Convention on the Rights of the Child1
and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women2 as a matter of priority;
2. Urges States to consider signing, ratifying or acceding to the Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women18 and the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child;19
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18 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2131, No. 20378.
19 Ibid., vols. 2171 and 2173, No. 27531.
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3. Calls upon States to consider signing, ratifying or acceding to the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities4 and the Optional Protocol
thereto;20
4. Urges all States that have not yet signed and ratified or acceded to the
Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, 1973
(Convention No. 138) 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 to consider doing
so;
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,15 in particular that of
eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, which
have not been fully met, and to implement the United Nations Girls’ Education
Initiative as a means of reaching this goal, and calls for the implementation of and
reaffirms the commitments contained in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration,21 particularly those related to education;
6. Calls upon States and the international community to recognize the right
to education on the basis of equal opportunity and non-discrimination by making
primary education compulsory and available free to all children, ensuring that all
children have access to education of good quality, as well as making secondary
education generally available and accessible to all, in particular through the
progressive introduction of free education, bearing in mind that special measures to
ensure equal access, including affirmative action, contribute to achieving equal
opportunity and combating exclusion, and ensuring school attendance, in particular
for girls and children from low-income families;
7. 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,10 as contained in paragraph 33 of the further actions and initiatives to
implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 22 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;
8. 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 for Action;
9. 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 the further actions and initiatives, and to mobilize all necessary resources and
support in order to achieve the goals and strategic objectives and actions set out in
the Beijing Declaration9 and Platform for Action;
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20 Resolution 61/106, annex II.
21 See resolution 55/2.
22 Resolution S-23/3, annex.
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10. Urges States to improve the situation of girl children living in poverty,
deprived of nutrition, water and sanitation facilities, with no access to basic
health-care services, shelter, education, participation and protection, taking into
account that, while a severe lack of goods and services hurts every human being, it
is most threatening and harmful to the girl child, leaving her unable to enjoy her
rights, to reach her full potential and to participate as a full member of society;
11. Also urges States to ensure that the applicable requirements of the
International Labour Organization for the employment of girls and boys are
respected and effectively enforced and that girls who are employed have equal
access to decent work, and equal payment and remuneration, are protected from
economic exploitation, discrimination, sexual harassment, violence and abuse in the
workplace, are aware of their rights and have access to formal and non-formal
education, skills development and vocational training, and further urges States to
develop gender-sensitive measures, including national action plans where
appropriate, to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, including commercial
sexual exploitation, slavery-like practices, forced and bonded labour, trafficking and
hazardous forms of child labour;
12. Urges all States to promote gender equality and equal access to basic
social services, such as education, nutrition, health care, including sexual and
reproductive health, vaccinations and protection from diseases representing the
major causes of mortality, and to mainstream a gender perspective in all
development policies and programmes, including those relating to children as well
as those specific to the girl child;
13. Also urges all States to enact and enforce legislation to protect girls from
all forms of violence and exploitation, including female infanticide and prenatal sex
selection, female genital mutilation, rape, domestic violence, incest, sexual abuse,
sexual exploitation, child prostitution and child pornography, trafficking and forced
migration, forced labour and early and forced marriage, and to develop
age-appropriate safe and confidential programmes and medical, social and
psychological support services to assist girls who are subjected to violence and
discrimination;
14. Urges States to formulate comprehensive, multidisciplinary and
coordinated national plans, programmes or strategies to eliminate all forms of
discrimination and 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 Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council on violence
against women, its causes and consequences and on trafficking in persons,
especially women and children, of the Secretary-General in his in-depth study on all
forms of violence against women17 and of the independent expert in his study on
violence against children;16
15. Also urges States to ensure that the right of children to express
themselves and participate in all matters affecting them, in accordance with their
age and maturity, is fully and equally enjoyed by girls;
16. Further urges States to involve girls, including girls with special needs,
and their representative organizations, in decision-making processes, as appropriate,
and to include them as full and active partners in identifying their own needs and in
developing, planning, implementing and assessing policies and programmes to meet
those needs;
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17. Recognizes that a considerable number of girl children are particularly
vulnerable, including orphans, children living on the street, internally displaced and
refugee children, children affected by trafficking and sexual and economic
exploitation, children living with HIV and AIDS, and children who are incarcerated
who live without parental support, and therefore urges States, with the support of
the international community, where relevant, to take appropriate measures to
address the needs of such children by implementing national policies and strategies
to build and strengthen governmental, community and family capacities to provide a
supportive environment for such children, including by providing appropriate
counselling and psychosocial support, and ensuring their enrolment in school and
access to shelter, good nutrition and health and social services on an equal basis
with other children;
18. Encourages States to promote actions, including through bilateral and
multilateral technical cooperation and financial assistance, for the social
reintegration of children in difficult situations, in particular girls, considering,
inter alia, views, skills and capacities that those children have developed in the
conditions in which they lived and, where appropriate, with their meaningful
participation;
19. Urges all States and the international community to respect, promote and
protect the rights of the girl child, taking into account the particular vulnerabilities
of the girl child in pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict situations, and further
urges States to take special measures for the protection of girls, in particular to
protect them from sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, gender-based
violence, including rape, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, torture, abduction
and forced labour, paying special attention to refugee and displaced girls, and to
take into account their special needs in the delivery of humanitarian assistance and
disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation assistance and reintegration processes;
20. Deplores all cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and
children, especially girls, in humanitarian crises, including those cases involving
humanitarian workers and peacekeepers, and urges States to take effective measures
to address gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies and to make all
possible efforts to ensure that their laws and institutions are adequate to prevent,
promptly investigate and prosecute acts of gender-based violence;
21. Deplores further all acts of sexual exploitation, abuse of and trafficking
in women and children by military, police and civilian personnel involved in United
Nations operations, welcomes the efforts undertaken by United Nations agencies
and peacekeeping operations to implement a zero-tolerance policy in this regard,
and requests the Secretary-General and personnel-contributing countries to continue
to take all appropriate action necessary to combat these abuses by such personnel,
including through the full implementation without delay of those measures adopted
in the relevant General Assembly resolutions based on recommendations of the
Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations;23
22. Calls upon Governments, civil society, including the media, and
non-governmental organizations to promote human rights education and full respect
for and the enjoyment of the human rights of the girl child, inter alia, through the
translation, production and dissemination of age-appropriate and gender-sensitive
information material on those rights to all sectors of society, in particular to
children;
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23 See Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 19 (A/59/19/Rev.1).
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23. Requests the Secretary-General, as Chairman of the United Nations
System Chief Executives Board for 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, the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Labour
Organization, take into account the rights and the particular needs of the girl child in
country programmes of cooperation in accordance with national priorities, including
through the United Nations Development Assistance Framework;
24. Requests all human rights treaty bodies and the human rights
mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, including the special procedures, 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;
25. Requests States to ensure that, in all policies and programmes designed
to provide comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support,
particular attention and support is given to the girl child at risk, infected with and
affected by HIV/AIDS, including pregnant girls and young and adolescent mothers,
as part of the global effort to scale up significantly towards achieving the goal of
universal access to comprehensive prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010;
26. Invites States to promote initiatives aimed at reducing the prices of
antiretroviral drugs, especially second-line drugs, available to the girl child,
including bilateral and private sector initiatives as well as initiatives on a voluntary
basis taken by groups of States, including those based on innovative financing
mechanisms that contribute to the mobilization of resources for social development,
including those that aim to provide further access to drugs at affordable prices to
developing countries on a sustainable and predictable basis, and in this regard takes
note of the International Drug Purchase Facility, UNITAID;
27. Calls upon all States to integrate food and nutritional support with the
goal that children, especially girl children, have access at all times to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences, for an active
and healthy life, as part of a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS and other
communicable diseases;
28. Urges States and the international community to increase resources at all
levels, particularly in the education and health sectors, to enable young people,
especially girls, to gain the knowledge, attitudes and skills that they need to prevent
HIV/AIDS and early pregnancy and to enjoy the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive health;
29. Urges States, the international community, the relevant United Nations
entities, civil society and international financial institutions to continue to actively
support, through the allocation of increased financial resources, targeted innovative
programmes that address ending female genital mutilation and developing and
providing education programmes and sensitization workshops on the dire
consequences of this harmful practice for the health of the girl and to provide for
those who perform the harmful procedure training programmes so that they may
adopt an alternative profession;
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30. Calls upon States to strengthen the capacity of national health systems,
and in this regard calls upon the international community to assist national efforts,
including by allocation of adequate resources in order to provide essential services
needed to prevent obstetric fistula and to treat those cases that occur by providing
the continuum of services, including family planning, prenatal and post-natal care,
skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric care and post-partum care, to
adolescent girls, including those living in poverty and in underserved rural areas
where obstetric fistula is most common;
31. Calls upon States and the international community to create an
environment in which the well-being of the child is ensured, inter alia, by
cooperating, supporting and participating in global efforts for poverty eradication at
the global, regional and country levels, recognizing that strengthened availability
and effective allocation of resources are required at all levels, in order to ensure that
all the internationally agreed development and poverty eradication goals, including
those set out in the Millennium Declaration, are realized within their time
framework, and reaffirming that investments in children and the realization of their
rights are among the most effective ways to eradicate poverty;
32. Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General
Assembly at its sixty-fourth session on the implementation of the present resolution,
including an emphasis on ending female genital mutilation, using information
provided by Member States, the organizations and bodies of the United Nations
system and non-governmental organizations, with a view to assessing the impact of
the present resolution on the well-being of the girl child.
76th plenary meeting
18 December 2007