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;

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;

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 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.

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.

37. Governments, in collaboration with research institutions and non-governmental organizations, as well as with the assistance of the international community, including donors, should strengthen national information systems to produce reliable statistics on a broad range of population, environment and development indicators in a timely manner. The indicators should include, inter alia, poverty rates at the community level; women's access to social and economic resources; enrolment and retention of girls and boys in schools; access to sexual and reproductive health services disaggregated by population sub-groups, including indigenous people; and gender sensitivity in sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning. In addition, in consultation with indigenous people, Governments should establish and strengthen national statistics and data collection concerning the health of indigenous people, including sexual and reproductive health and their determinants. All data systems should ensure availability of age- and sex-disaggregated data, which are crucial for translating policy into strategies that address age and gender concerns and for developing appropriate age- and gender-impact indicators for monitoring progress. Governments should also collect and disseminate the quantitative and qualitative data needed to assess the status of male and female reproductive health, including in urban areas, and to design, implement, monitor and evaluate action programmes. Special attention should be given to maternal mortality and morbidity, as this database remains inadequate. Health and reproductive health data should be disaggregated by income and poverty status to identify the specific health profile and needs of people living in poverty and as a basis for focusing resources and subsidies on those who need them most.

Achieving gender equality and empowerment of women requires redressing inequalities between women and men and girls and boys and ensuring their equal rights, responsibilities, opportunities and possibilities. Gender equality implies that women's needs, interests, concerns, experiences and priorities as well as men's are an integral dimension of the design, implementation, national monitoring, and follow-up and evaluation, including at the international level, of all actions in all areas.

The patterns of migratory flows of labour are changing. Women and girls are increasingly involved in internal, regional and international labour migration to pursue many occupations, mainly in farm labour, domestic work and some forms of entertainment work. While this situation increases their earning opportunities and self-reliance, it also exposes them, particularly the poor, uneducated, unskilled and/or undocumented migrants, to inadequate working conditions, increased health risk, the risk of trafficking, economic and sexual exploitation, racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, and other forms of abuse, which impair their enjoyment of their human rights and, in some cases, constitute violations of human rights.

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Strengthening implementation of legal and policy frameworks and accountability]: Ensure accountability for the killing, maiming and targeting of women and girls and crimes of sexual violence, as prohibited under international law, stressing the need for the exclusion of such crimes from amnesty provisions in the context of conflict resolution processes, and address such acts in all stages of the armed-conflict and post-conflict resolution process, including through transitional justice mechanisms, while taking steps to ensure the full and effective participation of women in such processes;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Strengthening implementation of legal and policy frameworks and accountability]: End impunity by ensuring accountability and punishing perpetrators of the most serious crimes against women and girls under national and international law, and stressing the need for the alleged perpetrators of those crimes to be held accountable under national justice or, where applicable, international justice;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Addressing structural and underlying causes and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls]: Improve the safety of girls at, and on the way to and from, school, including by establishing a safe and violence-free environment by improving infrastructure such as transportation and providing separate and adequate sanitation facilities, improved lighting, playgrounds and safe environments; adopting national policies to prohibit, prevent and address violence against children, especially girls, including sexual harassment and bullying and other forms of violence, through measures such as conducting violence prevention activities in schools and communities, and establishing and enforcing penalties for violence against girls;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Addressing structural and underlying causes and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls]: Take measures to ensure that all workplaces are free from discrimination and exploitation, violence, and sexual harassment and bullying, and that they address discrimination and violence against women and girls, as appropriate, through measures such as regulatory and oversight frameworks and reforms, collective agreements, codes of conduct, including appropriate disciplinary measures, protocols and procedures, referral of cases of violence to health services for treatment and police for investigation; as well as through awareness-raising and capacity-building, in collaboration with employers, unions and workers, including workplace services and flexibility for victims and survivors;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Addressing structural and underlying causes and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls]: Increase measures to protect women and girls from violence and harassment, including sexual harassment and bullying, in both public and private spaces, to address security and safety, through awareness-raising, involvement of local communities, crime prevention laws, policies, programmes such as the Safe Cities Initiative of the United Nations, improved urban planning, infrastructures, public transport and street lighting, and also through social and interactive media;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Addressing structural and underlying causes and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls]: Condemn and take action to prevent violence against women and girls in health-care settings, including sexual harassment, humiliation and forced medical procedures, or those conducted without informed consent, and which may be irreversible, such as forced hysterectomy, forced caesarean section, forced sterilization, forced abortion, and forced use of contraceptives, especially for particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged women and girls, such as those living with HIV, women and girls with disabilities, indigenous and Afro-descendent women and girls, pregnant adolescents and young mothers, older women, and women and girls from national or ethnic minorities;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Addressing structural and underlying causes and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls]: Promote and protect the human rights of all women, including their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence; and adopt and accelerate the implementation of laws, policies and programmes which protect and enable the enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including their reproductive rights in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and their review outcomes;

[The Commission urges governments, at all levels[...] to take the following actions:] [Addressing structural and underlying causes and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls]: Develop and implement gender-sensitive policies, strategies, programmes and measures which promote greater understanding and recognition that caregiving is a critical societal function, and encourage the equal sharing of responsibilities and chores between men and women in caregiving, including for persons with disabilities, older persons and people living with HIV, as well as for child-rearing, parenting and domestic work; and also work to change attitudes that reinforce the division of labour based on gender, in order to promote shared family responsibility for work in the home and reduce the domestic work burden for women and girls;

Eliminate negative cultural attitudes and practices against girls

[By Governments:] Take steps so that tradition and religion and their expressions are not a basis for discrimination against girls.

Eliminate discrimination against girls in education, skills development and training

[By Governments:] Take actions to ensure that female teachers and professors have the same possibilities and status as male teachers and professors.

[Actions to be taken by Governments, the United Nations system and civil society, as appropriate]: Strengthen concrete measures to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, including harmful traditional and customary practices, abuse and rape, battering and trafficking in women and girls, which aggravate the conditions fostering the spread of HIV/AIDS, through, inter alia, the enactment and enforcement of laws, as well as public campaigns to combat violence against women and girls;

[Actions to be taken by Governments, the United Nations and civil society, as appropriate]: Develop methodologies to identify the ways in which various forms of discrimination converge and affect women and girls and conduct studies on how racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance are reflected in laws, policies, institutions and practices and how this has contributed to the vulnerability, victimization, marginalization and exclusion of women and the girl child;

[Actions to be taken by Governments, the United Nations and civil society, as appropriate]: Collect, analyse and disseminate quantitative, qualitative and gender-sensitive data regarding the impact of all forms of discrimination, including the multiple discrimination, on women and girls and sponsor, where appropriate, surveys and community-based research, including the collection of disaggregated data by sex, age and other factors as appropriate.

[Actions to be taken by Governments, the United Nations system and civil society, as appropriate]: Strive to ensure that schools at all levels, other education institutions and non-formal systems of education play a leading role in preventing HIV infection, preventing and combating stigmatization and discrimination through the provision of an environment free of all forms of violence that promotes compassion and tolerance, and provide gender-sensitive education, including on responsible sexual behaviour, and practices, life skills and behaviour change;

[Actions to be taken by Governments, the United Nations system and civil society, as appropriate]: Request Governments to ensure universal and equal access for women and men throughout their life cycle to social services related to health care, including education, clean water and safe sanitation, nutrition, food security and health education programmes, especially for women and girls living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, including treatment for opportunistic diseases;

[The Commission [...] urges Governments [...] to:] [14.2. Education and training] (g) Ensure safe and supportive school environments for girls and girl- friendly school premises by implementing measures to eliminate discrimination and violence against girls and specific measures against sexual harassment at school, achieving gender balance at all levels in the education sector, providing appropriate sanitation and recreational facilities, boarding facilities, and school transport, where appropriate, and securing safe routes to and from school;