Recommends that the Secretary-General: (a) Further promote and institutionalize, to the extent possible, coordination of the initiatives of United Nations entities in respect of programmes related to women in order to avoid duplication and gaps; (b) Promote acceptance of gender-focused strategic planning in all the United Nations specialized agencies, including all their decision-making bodies concerned with women; (c) Assign to the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs of the Secretariat responsibility for coordinating activities leading to the establishment of an official common definition of gender-focused planning for the United Nations system and for promoting its acceptance in agencies of that system. Resolution 37/3. Rape and abuse of women in the territory of the former Yugoslavia* The Commission on the Status of Women, Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 38/ the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 39/ and other relevant human rights instruments, Welcoming Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/8 of 23 February 1993, Appalled at the recurring and substantiated reports of widespread rape and abuse of women and children in the former Yugoslavia, in particular the systematic use of those practices against Muslim women and children in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Serbian forces, Welcoming the initiative taken by the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, particularly his prompt dispatch to the former Yugoslavia of a team of experts, including a member of the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs of the Secretariat, to investigate the allegations of rape and abuse of women, 1. Strongly condemns the abhorrent practices of rape and abuse of women and children in the former Yugoslavia, which, in the circumstances, constitutes a war crime; 2. Expresses its outrage that the systematic practice of used as a weapon of war, in particular against Muslim women and an instrument of the policy of "ethnic cleansing" that is being Bosnia and Herzegovina by Serbian forces and that rape has also instrument of "ethnic cleansing" in Croatia; rape is being children, and as carried out in been used as an 3. Welcomes the request of the Commission on Human Rights to the Special Rapporteur to pursue an investigation into the rape and abuse of women and * For the discussion, see chap. II. 38/ General Assembly resolution 217 A (III). 39/ General Assembly resolution 34/180, annex. -32-