E/1999/27 E/CN.6/1999/10 violence, lack of appropriate physical and mental health care, nutrition and education or access to them, high rates of illiteracy, and the stress of multiple and conflicting roles, Acknowledging that special attention must be given to the mental health needs of women, including those who are marginalized because of, inter alia, race, ethnicity, religion, age, social and economic status, physical and/or mental disability, exploitative commercial sex, displacement, migration and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), 1. Calls for the urgent implementation of the health objectives of the Beijing Platform for Action and other relevant international agreements with the integration of mental health as a priority issue; 2. Requests Governments to include in their national policies and/or plans of action for women specific measures that would address the mental health needs of women and girls, especially the need for psychosocial care and counselling services; 3. Calls upon Governments to eliminate discrimination against women and girls in mental health care, where it exists, and to provide access to appropriate treatment that is responsive to women’s mental health needs at all ages; 4. Invites Governments to develop and implement public awareness campaigns on mental health and education focusing on women and girls who are most in need of psychological support; 5. Also invites Governments and other relevant actors, as appropriate, to provide or enhance mental health education and both pre-service and in-service training to primary health care workers, social service professionals, teachers and other educators, and community workers; 6. Encourages non-governmental organizations, private funding institutions and individual donors to organize and support assistance programmes and missions tailored to the needs of areas where psychological/psychiatric problems are prevalent among the population, in particular among poor urban and rural women, with a view to providing not only primary treatment but also training for family members and/or other persons who may take over the care of the afflicted persons; 7. Requests the relevant United Nations bodies, in collaboration with relevant agencies, to address and support the mental health needs of women and girls through various measures and projects; 8. Invites the World Health Organization, in partnership with other relevant United Nations bodies and agencies, and through extrabudgetary resources, to develop and disseminate a training manual designed to provide primary health care workers, social service professionals, and other community workers with the appropriate skills for assisting women and girls who are experiencing problems and mental disorders as a result of trauma, all forms of discrimination, exploitation, abuse and oppression; 9. Urges the Secretary-General, in collaboration with relevant United Nations bodies, to organize, subject to the availability of extrabudgetary resources, regional expert group meetings with a view to developing gender- and age-disaggregated and gender-sensitive psychosocial and mental health situation analyses and indicators as bases for determining progress in women’s and girls’ emotional well-being and mental health; 10. Invites concerned non-governmental organizations, funding sources and the private sector, in coordination with national authorities concerned, to support and develop a programme that will bring a wide range of expertise and proven interventions, including alternative community-based services, to the training of local community workers, teachers 29