Plan International - Girls' Rights Platform - Girls' rights are human rights: Positioning girls at the heart of the international agenda

Recognize further that to mount a comprehensive response, we must overcome any legal, regulatory, trade and other barriers that block access to prevention, treatment, care and support; commit adequate resources; promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all; promote gender equality and empowerment of women; promote and protect the rights of the girl child in order to reduce the vulnerability of the girl child to HIV/AIDS; strengthen health systems and support health workers; support greater involvement of people living with HIV; scale up the use of known effective and comprehensive prevention interventions; do everything necessary to ensure access to life-saving drugs and prevention tools; and develop with equal urgency better tools - drugs, diagnostics and prevention technologies, including vaccines and microbicides - for the future;

Pledge to eliminate gender inequalities, gender-based abuse and violence; increase the capacity of women and adolescent girls to protect themselves from the risk of HIV infection, principally through the provision of health care and services, including, inter alia, sexual and reproductive health, and the provision of full access to comprehensive information and education; ensure that women can exercise their right to have control over, and decide freely and responsibly on, matters related to their sexuality in order to increase their ability to protect themselves from HIV infection, including their sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence; and take all necessary measures to create an enabling environment for the empowerment of women and strengthen their economic independence; and in this context, reiterate the importance of the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality;

Commit ourselves to strengthening legal, policy, administrative and other measures for the promotion and protection of women's full enjoyment of all human rights and the reduction of their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS through the elimination of all forms of discrimination, as well as all types of sexual exploitation of women, girls and boys, including for commercial reasons, and all forms of violence against women and girls, including harmful traditional and customary practices, abuse, rape and other forms of sexual violence, battering and trafficking in women and girls;

Remain deeply concerned that, globally, women and girls are still the most affected by the epidemic and that they bear a disproportionate share of the caregiving burden, and that the ability of women and girls to protect themselves from HIV continues to be compromised by physiological factors, gender inequalities, including unequal legal, economic and social status, insufficient access to health care and services, including for sexual and reproductive health, and all forms of discrimination and violence, including sexual violence and exploitation;

Reaffirm the central role of the family, bearing in mind that in different cultural, social and political systems various forms of the family exist, in reducing vulnerability to HIV, inter alia in educating and guiding children, and take account of cultural, religious and ethical factors to reduce the vulnerability of children and young people by ensuring access of both girls and boys to primary and secondary education, including HIV and AIDS in curricula for adolescents, ensuring safe and secure environments, especially for young girls, expanding good quality youth-friendly information and sexual health education and counselling services, strengthening reproductive and sexual health programmes, and involving families and young people in planning, implementing and evaluating HIV and AIDS prevention and care programmes, to the extent possible;

Pledge to eliminate gender inequalities and gender-based abuse and violence, increase the capacity of women and adolescent girls to protect themselves from the risk of HIV infection, principally through the provision of health care and services, including, inter alia, sexual and reproductive health, as well as full access to comprehensive information and education, ensure that women can exercise their right to have control over, and decide freely and responsibly on, matters related to their sexuality, including their sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, in order to increase their ability to protect themselves from HIV infection, and take all necessary measures to create an enabling environment for the empowerment of women and to strengthen their economic independence, and, in this context, reiterate the importance of the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality;

Commit to ensure that financial resources for prevention are targeted to evidence-based prevention measures that reflect the specific nature of each country's epidemic by focusing on geographic locations, social networks and populations vulnerable to HIV infection, according to the extent to which they account for new infections in each setting, in order to ensure that resources for HIV prevention are spent as cost-effectively as possible and to ensure that particular attention is paid to women and girls, young people, orphans and vulnerable children, migrants and people affected by humanitarian emergencies, prisoners, indigenous people and people with disabilities, depending on local circumstances;

Commit to ensuring that national responses to HIV and AIDS meet the specific needs of women and girls, including those living with and affected by HIV, across their lifespan, by strengthening legal, policy, administrative and other measures for the promotion and protection of women's full enjoyment of all human rights and the reduction of their vulnerability to HIV through the elimination of all forms of discrimination, as well as all types of sexual exploitation of women, girls and boys, including for commercial reasons, and all forms of violence against women and girls, including harmful traditional and customary practices, abuse, rape and other forms of sexual violence, battering and trafficking in women and girls;

Commit to strengthen national social and child protection systems and care and support programmes for children, in particular for the girl child, and adolescents affected by and vulnerable to HIV, as well as their families and caregivers, including through the provision of equal opportunities to support the development to their full potential of orphans and other children affected by and living with HIV, especially through equal access to education, the creation of safe and non-discriminatory learning environments, supportive legal systems and protections, including civil registration systems, and the provision of comprehensive information and support to children and their families and caregivers, especially age-appropriate HIV information, to assist children living with HIV as they transition through adolescence, consistent with their evolving capacities;

We resolve to unlock the potential of women as drivers of sustainable development, including through the repeal of discriminatory laws and the removal of formal barriers, ensuring equal access to justice and legal support, the reform of institutions to ensure competence and capacity for gender mainstreaming and the development and adoption of innovative and special approaches to address informal, harmful practices that act as barriers to gender equality. In this regard, we commit to creating an enabling environment for improving the situation of women and girls everywhere, particularly in rural areas and local communities and among indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities.

We are committed to promote the equal access of women and girls to education, basic services, economic opportunities and health-care services, including addressing women's sexual and reproductive health, and ensuring universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning. In this regard, we reaffirm our commitment to implement the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the key actions for the further implementation of the Programme of Action.

We, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, gathered in Addis Ababa from 13 to 16 July 2015, affirm our strong political commitment to address the challenge of financing and creating an enabling environment at all levels for sustainable development in the spirit of global partnership and solidarity. We reaffirm and build on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus and the 2008 Doha Declaration. Our goal is to end poverty and hunger and to achieve sustainable development in its three dimensions through promoting inclusive economic growth, protecting the environment and promoting social inclusion. We commit to respecting all human rights, including the right to development. We will ensure gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment. We will promote peaceful and inclusive societies and advance fully towards an equitable global economic system in which no country or person is left behind, enabling decent work and productive livelihoods for all, while preserving the planet for our children and future generations.

We reaffirm that achieving gender equality, empowering all women and girls, and the full realization of their human rights are essential to achieving sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development. We reiterate the need for gender mainstreaming, including targeted actions and investments in the formulation and implementation of all financial, economic, environmental and social policies. We recommit to adopting and strengthening sound policies and enforceable legislation and transformative actions for the promotion of gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment at all levels, to ensure women's equal rights, access and opportunities for participation and leadership in the economy and to eliminate gender-based violence and discrimination in all its forms.

We are committed to women's and girls' equal rights and opportunities in political and economic decision-making and resource allocation and to removing any barriers that prevent women from being full participants in the economy. We resolve to undertake legislation and administrative reforms to give women equal rights with men to economic resources, including access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology. We further encourage the private sector to contribute to advancing gender equality through striving to ensure women's full and productive employment and decent work, equal pay for equal work or work of equal value and equal opportunities, as well as protecting them against discrimination and abuse in the workplace. We support the Women's Empowerment Principles established by UN-Women and the Global Compact, and encourage increased investments in female-owned companies or businesses.

We recognize the importance for achieving sustainable development of delivering quality education to all girls and boys. This will require reaching children living in extreme poverty, children with disabilities, migrant and refugee children, and those in conflict and post-conflict situations, and providing safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all. We will scale up investments and international cooperation to allow all children to complete free, equitable, inclusive and quality early childhood, primary and secondary education, including through scaling up and strengthening initiatives, such as the Global Partnership for Education. We commit to upgrading education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and increasing the percentage of qualified teachers in developing countries, including through international cooperation, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States.

We resolve to adopt science, technology and innovation strategies as integral elements of our national sustainable development strategies to help to strengthen knowledge-sharing and collaboration. We will scale up investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and enhance technical, vocational and tertiary education and training, ensuring equal access for women and girls and encouraging their participation therein. We will increase the number of scholarships available to students in developing countries to enrol in higher education. We will enhance cooperation to strengthen tertiary education systems and aim to increase access to online education in areas related to sustainable development.

We, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, gathered in Addis Ababa from 13 to 16 July 2015, affirm our strong political commitment to address the challenge of financing and creating an enabling environment at all levels for sustainable development in the spirit of global partnership and solidarity. We reaffirm and build on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus and the 2008 Doha Declaration. Our goal is to end poverty and hunger and to achieve sustainable development in its three dimensions through promoting inclusive economic growth, protecting the environment and promoting social inclusion. We commit to respecting all human rights, including the right to development. We will ensure gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment. We will promote peaceful and inclusive societies and advance fully towards an equitable global economic system in which no country or person is left behind, enabling decent work and productive livelihoods for all, while preserving the planet for our children and future generations.

We reaffirm that achieving gender equality, empowering all women and girls, and the full realization of their human rights are essential to achieving sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development. We reiterate the need for gender mainstreaming, including targeted actions and investments in the formulation and implementation of all financial, economic, environmental and social policies. We recommit to adopting and strengthening sound policies and enforceable legislation and transformative actions for the promotion of gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment at all levels, to ensure women's equal rights, access and opportunities for participation and leadership in the economy and to eliminate gender-based violence and discrimination in all its forms.

We are committed to women's and girls' equal rights and opportunities in political and economic decision-making and resource allocation and to removing any barriers that prevent women from being full participants in the economy. We resolve to undertake legislation and administrative reforms to give women equal rights with men to economic resources, including access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology. We further encourage the private sector to contribute to advancing gender equality through striving to ensure women's full and productive employment and decent work, equal pay for equal work or work of equal value and equal opportunities, as well as protecting them against discrimination and abuse in the workplace. We support the Women's Empowerment Principles established by UN-Women and the Global Compact, and encourage increased investments in female-owned companies or businesses.

We recognize the importance for achieving sustainable development of delivering quality education to all girls and boys. This will require reaching children living in extreme poverty, children with disabilities, migrant and refugee children, and those in conflict and post-conflict situations, and providing safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all. We will scale up investments and international cooperation to allow all children to complete free, equitable, inclusive and quality early childhood, primary and secondary education, including through scaling up and strengthening initiatives, such as the Global Partnership for Education. We commit to upgrading education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and increasing the percentage of qualified teachers in developing countries, including through international cooperation, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States.

We resolve to adopt science, technology and innovation strategies as integral elements of our national sustainable development strategies to help to strengthen knowledge-sharing and collaboration. We will scale up investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and enhance technical, vocational and tertiary education and training, ensuring equal access for women and girls and encouraging their participation therein. We will increase the number of scholarships available to students in developing countries to enrol in higher education. We will enhance cooperation to strengthen tertiary education systems and aim to increase access to online education in areas related to sustainable development.

Promote comprehensive human rights education programmes, inter alia, in cooperation, where appropriate, with education and human rights institutions, the relevant actors of civil society, in particular non-governmental organizations and the media networks, to ensure widespread dissemination of information on human rights instruments, in particular those concerning the human rights of women and girls;

Undertake comprehensive actions to provide and support quality skills training for women and girls at all levels, on the basis of strategies developed with their full and effective participation, to achieve agreed targets to eradicate poverty, in particular the feminization of poverty, through national, regional and international efforts. National efforts need to be complemented by intensified regional and international cooperation in order to tackle the risks, overcome the challenges and ensure that opportunities created by globalization benefit women, particularly in developing countries;

Provide access to adequate and affordable treatment, monitoring and care for all people, especially women and girls, infected with sexually transmitted diseases or living with life-threatening diseases, including HIV/AIDS and associated opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis. Provide other services, including adequate housing and social protection, including during pregnancy and breastfeeding; assist boys and girls orphaned as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic; and provide gender-sensitive support systems for women and other family members who are involved in caring for persons affected by serious health conditions, including HIV/AIDS;

Stressing that gender equality and the empowerment of women are fundamental elements in the reduction of the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS;

By 2005, bearing in mind the context and character of the epidemic and that, globally, women and girls are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, develop and accelerate the implementation of national strategies that promote the advancement of women and women's full enjoyment of all human rights; promote shared responsibility of men and women to ensure safe sex; and empower women to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality to increase their ability to protect themselves from HIV infection;

By 2003, in order to complement prevention programmes that address activities which place individuals at risk of HIV infection, such as risky and unsafe sexual behaviour and injecting drug use, have in place in all countries strategies, policies and programmes that identify and begin to address those factors that make individuals particularly vulnerable to HIV infection, including underdevelopment, economic insecurity, poverty, lack of empowerment of women, lack of education, social exclusion, illiteracy, discrimination, lack of information and/or commodities for self-protection, and all types of sexual exploitation of women, girls and boys, including for commercial reasons. Such strategies, policies and programmes should address the gender dimension of the epidemic, specify the action that will be taken to address vulnerability and set targets for achievement;

By 2003, develop and/or strengthen strategies, policies and programmes which recognize the importance of the family in reducing vulnerability, inter alia, in educating and guiding children and take account of cultural, religious and ethical factors, to reduce the vulnerability of children and young people by ensuring access of both girls and boys to primary and secondary education, including HIV/AIDS in curricula for adolescents; ensuring safe and secure environments, especially for young girls; expanding good-quality, youth-friendly information and sexual health education and counselling services; strengthening reproductive and sexual health programmes; and involving families and young people in planning, implementing and evaluating HIV/AIDS prevention and care programmes, to the extent possible;

By 2003, develop and by 2005 implement national policies and strategies to build and strengthen governmental, family and community capacities to provide a supportive environment for orphans and girls and boys infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, including by providing appropriate counselling and psychosocial support, ensuring their enrolment in school and access to shelter, good nutrition and health and social services on an equal basis with other children; and protect orphans and vulnerable children from all forms of abuse, violence, exploitation, discrimination, trafficking and loss of inheritance;

34. Governments and civil society, with the assistance of the international community, should, as quickly as possible, and in any case before 2015, meet the goal of the International Conference on Population and Development of achieving universal access to primary education, eliminate the gender gap in primary and secondary education by 2005 and strive to ensure that by 2010 the net primary school enrolment ratio for children of both sexes will be at least 90 per cent, compared with an estimated 85 per cent in 2000. Special efforts should be made to increase the retention rates of girls in primary and secondary school. Parents should be sensitized to the value of education of children, particularly of girls, so that the girls do achieve their full potential.