Requests the Secretary-General to provide to Member States training guidelines and materials on the protection, rights and the particular needs of women, as well as on the importance of involving women in all peacekeeping and peace-building measures, invites Member States to incorporate these elements as well as HIV/AIDS awareness training into their national training programmes for military and civilian police personnel in preparation for deployment, and further requests the Secretary-General to ensure that civilian personnel of peacekeeping operations receive similar training;

Notes the link between sexual violence in armed conflict and post-conflict situations and HIV infection, and the disproportionate burden of HIV and AIDS on women and girls as a persistent obstacle and challenge to gender equality; and urges United Nations entities, Member States and donors to support the development and strengthening of capacities of national health systems and civil society networks in order to provide sustainable assistance to women and girls living with or affected by HIV and AIDS in armed conflict and post-conflict situations;

Encourages Member States in post-conflict situations, in consultation with civil society, including women’s organizations, to specify in detail women and girls’ needs and priorities and design concrete strategies, in accordance with their legal systems, to address those needs and priorities, which cover inter alia support for greater physical security and better socio-economic conditions, through education, income generating activities, access to basic services, in particular health services, including sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights and mental health, gender-responsive law enforcement and access to justice, as well as enhancing capacity to engage in public decision-making at all levels;

Expresses its intention, where appropriate, to call upon the parties to a conflict to make special arrangements to meet the protection and assistance requirements of women, children and other vulnerable groups, including through the promotion of “days of immunization” and other opportunities for the safe and unhindered delivery of basic necessary services;

Encourages States, with the support of the international community, to increase access to health care, psychosocial support, legal assistance and socio economic reintegration services for victims of sexual violence, in particular in rural areas;

Expresses its intention, where appropriate, to call upon the parties to a conflict to make special arrangements to meet the protection and assistance requirements of women, children and other vulnerable groups, including through the promotion of “days of immunization” and other opportunities for the safe and unhindered delivery of basic necessary services;

Urges all parties concerned, including Member States, United Nations entities and financial institutions, to support the development and strengthening of the capacities of national institutions, in particular of judicial and health systems, and of local civil society networks in order to provide sustainable assistance to women and girls affected by armed conflict and post-conflict situations;

Reiterates the commitment to significantly intensify prevention efforts and increase access to treatment, in accordance with relevant national circumstances, by, inter alia, strengthening health systems, scaling up strategically aligned programmes aimed at reducing the risks and vulnerability of persons more likely to be infected with HIV, and combining biomedical, behavioural, social and structural interventions, and through the empowerment of women and adolescents so as to increase their capacity to protect themselves from the risk of HIV infection, and through the promotion and protection of all human rights;

Encourages States to pay due attention to the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders when developing and implementing relevant legislation, procedures, policies and practices, and invites relevant special procedures mandate holders, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and all other relevant organizations to take these rules into consideration in their activities;

Expresses particular concern at the grave problems faced by many internally displaced women and children, including violence and abuse, sexual exploitation, trafficking in persons, forced recruitment and abduction, and encourages the continued commitment of the Special Rapporteur to promote action to address their particular assistance, protection and development needs, as well as those of other groups with special needs, such as severely traumatized individuals, older persons and persons with disabilities, taking into account all relevant United Nations resolutions;

[Also calls upon States to take effective action to respond to domestic violence, including by:] Establishing comprehensive, coordinated, interdisciplinary, accessible and sustained multisectoral services, programmes and responses at all levels to provide immediate protection and support through which shelter and legal, health and psychological counselling and other services are available to all women facing or subjected to violence, and promoting collaboration and coordination among agencies;

Further stresses the need to make the formal legal system accessible to all women, regardless of any status;

Calls upon States to assess accountability mechanisms, where they exist, in relation to maternal mortality and morbidity, including the monitoring of inequities, while ensuring access to justice for women and girls, and to build accountability into interventions and strategies, to monitor the functioning and effectiveness of those mechanisms and processes and to take remedial action to ensure they are responsive to human rights;

Also urges States to ensure the promotion and protection of the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences, including through the development and enforcement of policies and legal frameworks and the strengthening of health systems that make universally accessible and available quality, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health-care services, commodities, information and education, including, inter alia, safe and effective methods of modern contraception, emergency contraception, prevention programmes for adolescent pregnancy, maternal health care, such as skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, which will reduce obstetric fistula and other complications of pregnancy and delivery, safe abortion where such services are permitted by national law, and prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, HIV and reproductive cancers, recognizing that human rights include the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination and violence;

Also urges States to adopt a holistic approach to maternal health, one of the elements of the full spectrum of women’s health, by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity by promoting access to family planning and proper prenatal care, skilled attendance at birth, postnatal care and methods of prevention, including affordable treatment and support services for sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV/AIDS, free of stigma and discrimination;

Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where it contributes to the malnutrition of

Calls upon States to collect disaggregated data, including data disaggregated by age, rural/urban location, disability and other relevant criteria, in relation to maternal mortality and morbidity to ensure effective targeting of policies and programmes to address discrimination and the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized women and adolescent girls, and to permit effective monitoring of policies and programmes, including through the adoption of national-level targets and indicators reflecting the main underlying causes of maternal mortality and morbidity, and through the development of appropriate health programmes;

Requests all States to renew their political commitment to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and morbidity at the local, national, regional and international levels, and to redouble their efforts to ensure the full and effective implementation of their human rights obligations, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and its review conferences, the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals, in particular the goals on improving maternal health and promoting gender equality and empowering women, including through the allocation of necessary domestic resources to health systems;

Encourages all States to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where it contributes to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and ensuring that women have equal access to social protection and to resources, including income, land and water and their ownership, as well as full and equal access to education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families;

Reiterates that States should take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on the basis of equality of men and women, access to health-care services, including those related to family planning, and that States should ensure for women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the postnatal period, granting free services where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation;

Further urges States to ensure equal access to and equal treatment of women and men in education and health care, and to enhance women’s sexual and reproductive health as well as education, including by, inter alia, training health providers and other health-care workers on gender equality and non-discrimination, respect for women’s rights and dignity, in lifesaving obstetric care and when giving birth, especially midwives and auxiliary nurses, ensuring the affordability of medicines and treatments, avoiding the overmedicalization of women’s health, acknowledging alternative medicine, abolishing discriminatory practices that hinder women’s access to health services, and providing age-appropriate, sexual health information, education and counselling, based on scientific evidence and human rights, for women, girls, men and boys;

Regrets that women's social and economic contributions to the welfare of the family and the social significance of maternity and paternity continue to be inadequately addressed and that women continue on many occasions to bear a disproportionate share of household responsibilities and the care of children, the sick and elderly, and in this regard emphasizes the need to consistently address such imbalances and to ensure that maternity, motherhood, parenting and the role of women in procreation is not a basis for discrimination nor for restricting the full participation of women in society;

[Urges Governments:] To provide resources, as appropriate, for the comprehensive protection and assistance to victims of trafficking, including access to adequate social, necessary medical and psychological care and services, including those related to HIV/AIDS, as well as shelter, legal assistance in a language that they can understand and helplines, and to cooperate in this regard, as appropriate, with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations;

Stresses that women should be empowered to protect themselves against violence and, in this regard, that women have the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters relating to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, and urges States to take legislative and policy steps in this regard;

Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where it contributes to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and ensuring that women have equal access to resources, including income, land and water and their ownership, as well as full and equal access to education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families;

Also urges States to ensure the promotion and protection of the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences, including through the development and enforcement of policies and legal frameworks and the strengthening of health systems that make universally accessible and available quality, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health-care services, commodities, information and education, including, inter alia, safe and effective methods of modern contraception, emergency contraception, prevention programmes for adolescent pregnancy, maternal health care, such as skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, which will reduce obstetric fistula and other complications of pregnancy and delivery, safe abortion where such services are permitted by national law, and prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, HIV and reproductive cancers, and recognizing that human rights include the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination and violence;

Establishing, as appropriate, comprehensive, coordinated, interdisciplinary, accessible and sustained multisectoral services, programmes and responses at all levels, with the support of all available technologies, for all victims and survivors of all forms of violence against women and girls based on their needs, that are adequately resourced and include effective and coordinated action by, as appropriate, the police and the justice sector, legal aid services, health-care services, including sexual and reproductive health, and medical, psychological and other counselling services, including specialist services as appropriate, State and independent women’s shelters and counselling centres, 24-hour hotlines, social aid services, one-stop crisis centres, immigration services, child services, public housing services to provide low-threshold, easy-to-reach and safe assistance for women and children, as well as assistance, protection and support through access to long-term accommodation, educational, employment and economic opportunities, and to take steps to ensure the safety and security of health-care workers and service providers who assist and support victims and survivors of violence and, in cases of girl victims, to ensure that such services and responses take into account the best interests of the child;

Urges States to strengthen initiatives that would increase the capacity of women and adolescent girls to protect themselves from HIV infection, including by providing HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support services, to ensure protection from and prevention of stigma and discrimination, and to cooperate with United Nations bodies, programmes and specialized agencies and international and non-governmental organizations in this regard;

Decides to hold a panel discussion at its nineteenth session, within existing resources, in consultation with all regional groups, to give voice to people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS, in particular young people, women and orphaned children, with a view to taking into account their experiences in reinforcing the centrality of human rights in the response to HIV/AIDS, in the context of the timely achievement of Millennium Development Goal 6 and in compliance with the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS and the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS.

[Urges States to demonstrate their commitment to preventing and eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls, thereby reducing barriers to women’s social, economic and political empowerment, including by:] Promoting and protecting sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action, and the outcome documents of their review conferences;