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

Remaining alarmed by the high level of impunity with regard to gender-related killing of women and girls and the fact that violence against women and girls is among the least prosecuted and punished crimes in the world,

10. Stresses the importance of mainstreaming a gender and age perspective into justice systems at all levels to ensure equal protection of the law for women and girls, taking into consideration, inter alia, the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the United Nations Model Strategies and Practical Measures on the Elimination of Violence against Children in the Field of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice;

11. Encourages Member States to consider including in their national delegations heads of national mechanisms for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, as appropriate, as well as representatives such as parliamentarians, representatives of civil society and other relevant stakeholders;

4. Encourages Member States to promote work-family balance as conducive to the well-being of children, the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, inter alia, through flexible working and leave arrangements, parental leave, affordable, accessible and good quality childcare and initiatives to promote the equal sharing of household responsibilities, including unpaid care work, between men and women;

15. Calls upon States to ensure a more holistic and coordinated approach to the humanitarian-development nexus that places the individual woman and girl at the centre of humanitarian preparedness and response, and recognizes the need to overcome siloed approaches and fragmented programming;

Convinced that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance reveal themselves in a differentiated manner for women and girls and may be among the factors leading to a deterioration in their living conditions, poverty, violence, multiple forms of discrimination and the limitation or denial of their human rights, and recognizing the need to integrate a gender perspective into relevant policies, strategies and programmes of action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in order to address multiple forms of discrimination,

Recognizing the impact of cluster munitions on women, men, girls and boys and the importance of relevant States providing adequate, gender- and age-sensitive assistance to victims of cluster munitions,

5. Underscores that States have the primary responsibility for protecting women and girls facing violence and, in this regard, urges States:

26. Underscores the need to ensure equal protection of the law and equality before the courts for indigenous women and girls at all levels and, to that end, the importance of providing systematic gender-sensitivity training, as appropriate, for police and security forces, prosecutors, judges and lawyers, integrating gender considerations into security sector reform initiatives, developing protocols and guidelines and enhancing or putting in place appropriate accountability measures for adjudicators;

Recognizing also that those who are exposed to or experience violence in childhood are at increased risk of becoming perpetrators of violence against women and girls, and therefore recognizing the need to prevent and eliminate violence against women and children in order to help to stop the intergenerational cycle of violence,

Recognizing that child, early and forced marriage is a harmful practice that violates, abuses or impairs human rights and is linked to and perpetuates other harmful practices and human rights violations and that such violations have a disproportionately negative impact on women and girls, and underscoring the human rights obligations and commitments of States to promote and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls and to prevent and eliminate the practice of child, early and forced marriage,

37. Acknowledges and encourages the efforts made by the Government of Afghanistan in promoting respect for human rights, expresses its concern at the destructive consequences of violent and terrorist activities, including against persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other violent and extremist groups and other illegal armed groups and criminals for the enjoyment of human rights and for the capacity of the Government to ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms for all Afghans, notes with concern reports of incidents in which violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law have occurred, including violations committed against women and children, in particular girls, stresses the need to further promote tolerance and religious freedom and to ensure respect for the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of thought, conscience or belief as enshrined in the Afghan Constitution, emphasizes the necessity of investigating allegations of current and past violations, stresses the importance of facilitating the provision of efficient and effective remedies to the victims and of bringing the perpetrators to justice in accordance with national and international law, calls for full implementation of the mass media law, while noting with concern and condemning the continuing intimidation and violence targeting Afghan journalists, such as cases of abduction and even killing of journalists by terrorist as well as extremist and criminal groups, and urges that harassment and attacks on journalists be investigated by Afghan authorities and that those responsible be brought to justice;

13. Reaffirms 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, reiterates the need for gender mainstreaming, including targeted actions and investments in the formulation and implementation of all financial, economic, environmental and social policies, and recommits 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;

(b) To support and promote international cooperation and assistance and enhance partnerships and coordination, including South-South cooperation, among themselves and the active participation of civil society organizations, including women’s organizations and organizations of women and girls with disabilities and other key stakeholders in strengthening means of implementation, including mobilization of financial resources and technical cooperation for the implementation of the Convention and the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development focusing on women and girls with disabilities;

36. Encourages the international community to support developing countries in their efforts to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, and achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, the poor and people in vulnerable situations, with a view to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals, as established by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which builds upon the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and addresses their unfinished business, improving access to financial services, including affordable microfinance and credit, removing barriers to opportunity, enhancing productive capacity, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, encouraging the formalization and growth of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, developing sustainable agriculture and promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all, emphasizing the important role of national efforts aimed at bringing workers from the informal to the formal economy, guided, as appropriate, by the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy Recommendation, 2015 (No. 204), of the International Labour Organization, complemented by national efforts on effective social policies, including social protection floors, and in this regard takes note of the Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), of the International Labour Organization;

6. Encourages all States to mainstream a gender perspective in food security programmes and to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where such inequality and discrimination contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including by taking measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and ensuring that women and girls have equal access to social protection and resources, including income, land and water, and their ownership, and 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 to strengthen their role in decision-making;

16. Strongly urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination and other human rights violations against women and girls, including with respect to the right to freedom of movement, the right to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, the right to freedom of religion or belief and the right to work, to take measures to ensure protection for women and girls against violence and their equal protection and access to justice, to address the concerning incidence of child, early and forced marriage, as recommended by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, to promote, support and enable women’s participation in political and other decision-making processes, and, while recognizing the high enrolment of women in all levels of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to lift restrictions on women’s equal access to all aspects of education and women’s equal participation in the labour market and in all aspects of economic, cultural, social and political life;

15. Urges the Venezuelan authorities to adopt appropriate measures to address reported acts of violence and harassment, sexual violence against women and girls in detention in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which includes accounts of physical, sexual and verbal abuse, threats and intimidation, the sexual exploitation of women and girls for food, protection and privileges, and the ill-treatment, torture and denial of rights of women human rights defenders, nurses, teachers and civil servants, women political prisoners and detainees in detention centres;

4. Also calls upon States to ensure the right to education of good quality for women and girls, on an equal basis with men and boys, and to ensure that they complete a full course of primary education, and to renew their efforts to improve and expand girls’ and women’s education at all levels, including at the secondary and higher levels, and including age-appropriate sex education, as well as vocational education and technical training, in order to, inter alia, achieve gender equality, the empowerment of women and girls and poverty eradication;

(k) To address the gender dimension of all forms of violence against children and incorporate a gender perspective in all policies adopted and actions taken to protect children against all forms of violence, acknowledging that girls and boys face varying risks from different forms of violence at different ages and in different situations, and in this context recalls the agreed conclusions adopted by the Commission on the Status of Women, including those adopted at its fifty-seventh session, 36 on the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls;

20. Stresses the need to eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spaces, and encourages Member States to adopt specific preventive measures to protect women, youth and children from any abuse, including sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence;

18. Urges Governments to devise, enforce and strengthen effective gender- and age-sensitive measures to combat and eliminate all forms of trafficking in women and girls, including for sexual and economic exploitation, as part of a comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy that integrates a human rights perspective, and to draw up, as appropriate, national action plans in this regard;

(a) The repeal of all legislative and other measures that discriminate against women and girls and those that impede the realization of all their human rights;

7. Encourages all States to take action to address discrimination against women, particularly where it contributes to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the realization of the right to food and ensuring that women have equal access to resources, including income, land and water, to enable them to feed themselves;

Welcoming the increased attention to the situation of women and girls and the integration of gender perspectives in the work of the United Nations, in particular in the outcomes of major conferences, special sessions and summit conferences and their follow-up processes, as well as the review and appraisal by the Economic and Social Council of the system-wide implementation of its agreed conclusions 1997/2 of 18 July 1997 on mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system, 3 the inclusion of the question of gender mainstreaming in its agenda, the consideration of annual progress made in gender mainstreaming and the attention given to the gender perspective in the outcomes of its substantive session of 2004,

40. Recognizes the special needs of girls, strongly condemns terrorist attacks on education facilities, and encourages the Government of Afghanistan, with the assistance of the international community, to expand these facilities, to train professional staff and to promote full and equal access to them by all members of Afghan society, including in remote areas;

(e) To eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination and other human rights violations against women and girls;

2. Recognizes that violence against women and girls persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation, abuse or impairment of human rights and is a major impediment to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, sustainable development, peace, security and the internationally agreed development goals, in particular the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; 1

18. Requests all human rights treaty bodies, special procedures and other human rights mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights and its Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights to adopt regularly and systematically a gender perspective in the implementation of their mandates and to include in their reports information on the qualitative analysis of violations of the human rights of women and girls, and encourages the strengthening of cooperation and coordination in that regard;

14. Calls upon States to develop, support and implement comprehensive and integrated strategies for the prevention of female genital mutilation, including the training of social workers, medical personnel, community and religious leaders and relevant professionals, and to ensure that they provide competent, supportive services and care to all women and girls who are at risk of or who have undergone female genital mutilation and encourage them to report to the appropriate authorities cases in which they believe that women or girls are at risk;