[Also welcomes actions undertaken by Governments to implement the provisions on trafficking in women and girls contained in the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, and calls upon Governments, particularly those of countries of origin, transit and destination, as well as regional and international organizations, as appropriate, to undertake immediate action or to strengthen efforts in their implementation by:] Allocating resources to provide comprehensive programmes designed to heal and rehabilitate into society victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance and confidential health care, and by taking measures to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims of trafficking;

Calls upon Governments to promote, inter alia, through legislation, family-friendly and gender-sensitive work environments and also to promote the facilitation of breastfeeding for working mothers;

[Welcomes:] The joint statement by the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Population Fund on female genital mutilation, which expresses a common purpose in supporting the efforts of Governments and communities to promote and protect the health and development of women and children by promoting awareness of the problem and by educating the public, health workers and those who carry out the practice, on all its health consequences;

[Calls upon all States and international and non-governmental organizations, individually and collectively:] To give attention to the rights and needs of adolescent girls, which call for special action for their protection from sexual and economic exploitation and abuse, harmful traditional and cultural practices, teenage pregnancy and vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and for the development of life skills and self-esteem, reaffirming that the advancement and empowerment of women throughout the life cycle must begin with the girl child at all ages;

[Invites Member States, in collaboration with the organizations of the United Nations and civil society, as appropriate, to continue their efforts to implement the outcome of and to ensure an integrated and coordinated follow-up to United Nations conferences and summits, including their five-year reviews, and to attach greater importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women in their national, regional and global development strategies by, inter alia:] Investing in and strengthening efforts to meet the basic needs of rural women through capacity-building and human resources development measures and the provision of a safe and reliable water supply and sanitation, nutritional programmes, education and literacy programmes, and health and social support measures, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS treatment, care and support;

Takes note of the five issues of concern to young people identified in the World Youth Report 2003, namely, the mixed impact of globalization on young women and men, the use of and access to information and communication technologies, the dramatic increase of human immunodeficiency virus infections among young people and the impact of the epidemic on their lives, the active involvement of young people in armed conflict, both as victims and as perpetrators, and the increased importance of addressing intergenerational issues in an ageing society;

[Urges Member States, in collaboration with the organizations of the United Nations and civil society, as appropriate, to continue their efforts to implement the outcome of and to ensure an integrated and coordinated follow-up to United Nations conferences and summits, including their reviews, and to attach greater importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women, including indigenous women, in their national, regional and global development strategies by, inter alia:] Addressing the specific health needs of rural women and taking concrete measures to enhance and provide access to the highest attainable standards of health for women in rural areas, including in such areas of sexual and reproductive health as pre- and post-natal health care, emergency obstetric care, family planning information and increasing knowledge, awareness and support for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS;

Reaffirms the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, and urges Member States to fulfil their commitments on the provision of universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support in order to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, engage young people in the AIDS response, ensure education and employment opportunities to reduce vulnerability to HIV, provide youth-friendly health services, including voluntary and confidential counselling and testing, continue efforts to eliminate the stigma of, and discrimination against, young people living with HIV, and ensure that HIV/AIDS policies and programmes are reviewed so that they contribute to reducing the particular vulnerability of young women and girls to HIV;

Stresses that the empowerment of women and girls is key to breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and for the promotion and protection of human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health, including sexual and reproductive health, and calls upon States parties 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 their commitments to implement the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Actionand the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”, and of the special session of the Assembly on children;

[Calls upon States and/or the relevant funds and programmes, organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, and invites the international financial institutions and all relevant actors of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, and the private sector:] To develop, implement and support national and international prevention, care and treatment and socioeconomic reintegration and support strategies, policies and plans to eliminate obstetric fistula and to develop further multisectoral, multidisciplinary, comprehensive and integrated action plans in order to bring about lasting solutions and put an end to maternal mortality and morbidity and obstetric fistula, including by ensuring access to affordable, accessible, comprehensive, high-quality maternal health-care services; within countries, policy and programmatic approaches to address inequities and reach poor, vulnerable women and girls must be incorporated into all sectors of national budgets;

[Calls upon States and/or the relevant funds and programmes, organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, and invites the international financial institutions and all relevant actors of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, and the private sector:] To ensure that all women and girls who have undergone fistula treatment, including the forgotten women and girls with incurable or inoperable fistula, have access to holistic social integration services and careful follow-up, including counselling, education, family planning and socioeconomic empowerment through, inter alia, skills development and income-generating activities, so that they can overcome abandonment and social exclusion; linkages with civil society organizations and women's and girls' empowerment programmes should be developed to help to achieve this goal;

[Calls upon States and/or the relevant funds and programmes, organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, and invites the international financial institutions and all relevant actors of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, and the private sector:] To educate individual women and men, girls and boys, communities, policymakers and health professionals about how obstetric fistula can be prevented and treated, and increase awareness of the needs of pregnant women and girls, as well as of those who have undergone surgical fistula repair, including their right to the highest attainable standard of health, by working with community and religious leaders, traditional birth attendants, women and girls who have suffered from fistula, the media, social workers, civil society, women's organizations, influential public figures and policymakers, support the training of doctors, midwives, nurses and other health workers in life-saving obstetric care, and include training on fistula repair, treatment and care as a standard element of the training curricula of health professionals;

[Urges States to continue to develop their national strategies, translating them into concrete programmes and actions and a more systematic, comprehensive, multisectoral and sustained approach, aimed at eliminating all forms of violence against women, including by achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and by increasing the focus on prevention, protection and accountability in laws, policies and programmes and their implementation, monitoring and evaluation, so as to ensure the optimal use of available instruments, by, for example:] Strengthening national health and social infrastructure to reinforce measures to promote and protect women's equal access to public health-care services, including for sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and address the health consequences of all forms of violence against women, including by providing specialized health services such as supportive counselling, post-exposure prophylaxis for exposure to HIV and other services;

Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where they contribute 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 and agricultural inputs, as well as full and equal access to health care, education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families, and in this regard stresses the need to empower women and strengthen their role in decision-making;

Expresses deep concern that maternal health remains one area constrained by some of the largest health inequities in the world, and over the uneven progress in improving child and maternal health, in this context calls upon States to implement their commitments to preventing and reducing child and maternal mortality and morbidity, and welcomes in that regard the Secretary-General's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health as well as national, regional and international initiatives contributing to the reduction in the number of maternal deaths and deaths of the newborn and children under age 5;

Urges multilateral donors, and invites international financial institutions, within their respective mandates, and regional development banks to review and implement policies to support national efforts to ensure that a higher proportion of resources reaches young women and girls, in particular in rural and remote areas;

Also urges States to complement punitive measures with awareness-raising and educational activities designed to promote a process of consensus towards the elimination of female genital mutilations, and further urges States to protect and support women and girls who have been subjected to female genital mutilations and those at risk, including by developing social and psychological support services and care, and to explore other remedies, as appropriate, and take measures to improve their health, including sexual and reproductive health, in order to assist women and girls who are subjected to the practice;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that all relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), the World Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, individually and collectively, take into account the protection and promotion of the rights of women and girls against female genital mutilations in their country programmes, as appropriate and in accordance with national priorities, in order to further strengthen their efforts in this regard;

[Calls upon States and/or the relevant funds and programmes, organs and the specialized agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, and invites the international financial institutions and all relevant actors of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, and the private sector:] To provide essential health-care services, equipment and supplies, skills training and income-generating projects to women and girls so that they can break out of the cycle of poverty;

Calls upon States, with the support, where appropriate, of international organizations, civil society and non-governmental organizations, to develop policies and programmes, giving priority to formal, informal and non-formal education programmes, including age-appropriate sex education with appropriate direction and guidance from parents and legal guardians, that support girls and adolescent girls and enable them to acquire relevant and adequate knowledge and information in a manner consistent with their evolving capacities, develop self-esteem and take responsibility for their own lives, and to place special focus on programmes to educate women and men, especially parents, about the importance of girls' physical and mental health and well-being and the need to develop and maintain respectful relationships between girls and boys;

[Urges Member States, in collaboration with the organizations of the United Nations system and civil society, as appropriate, to continue their efforts to implement the outcome of and to ensure an integrated and coordinated follow-up to the relevant United Nations conferences and summits, including their reviews, and to attach greater importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women and girls, in their national, regional and global development strategies by, inter alia:] Promoting sustainable infrastructure, access to safe drinking water and sanitation and safe cooking and heating practices to improve the health and nutrition of rural women and girls;

Calls upon concerned Governments to allocate resources, as appropriate, to provide access to appropriate programmes for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking, including sexual and reproductive health-care services that include affordable treatment, care and support services for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections, free of stigma and discrimination, as well as comprehensive information and voluntary counselling, and to take measures to cooperate with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims in ways that protect their privacy and identity;

Stresses that the empowerment of women and girls is key to breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and for the promotion and protection of human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health, including sexual and reproductive health, and calls upon States parties 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 their commitments to implement the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled "Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century", and of the special session of the General Assembly on children;

Also urges States to complement punitive measures with awareness-raising and educational activities designed to promote a process of consensus towards the elimination of female genital mutilation, and further urges States to protect and support women and girls who have been subjected to female genital mutilation and those at risk, including by developing social and psychological support services and care and appropriate remedies, and to take measures to improve their health, including sexual and reproductive health, in order to assist women and girls who are subjected to the practice;

Urges States to ensure that the protection and provision of support to women and girls subject to, or at risk of, female genital mutilation are an integral part of policies and programmes that address the practice, and to provide women and girls with coordinated, specialized, accessible and quality multisectoral prevention and response, including education, as well as legal, psychological, health-care and social services, provided by qualified personnel, consistent with the guidelines of medical ethics;

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;