Human Rights Council
Eleventh Session
Resolution 11/2. Accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women
The Human Rights Council,
Reaffirming the obligation of all States to promote and protect all human rights and
fundamental freedoms, and reaffirming also that discrimination on the basis of sex is contrary to
the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other international human
rights instruments, and that its elimination is an integral part of efforts towards the elimination of
violence against women and girls,
Reaffirming also the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the
Cairo Programme of Action, the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the
General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the
twenty-first century”, and the Declaration adopted at the forty-ninth session of the Commission
on the Status of Women,
Reaffirming further Council resolutions 6/30 of 14 December 2007 on integrating the
human rights of women throughout the United Nations system, and 7/24 of 28 March 2008 on
the elimination of violence against women, all resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights
on the elimination of violence against women, General Assembly resolution 63/155 of
30 January 2009 on the intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against
women and all other Assembly resolutions relevant to the elimination of all forms of
violence against women, and Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000) of 31 October 2000
and 1820 (2008) of 19 June 2008 on women, peace and security,
Deeply concerned that all forms of discrimination, including racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance and multiple or aggravated forms of discrimination and
disadvantage, can lead to the particular targeting or vulnerability to violence of girls and some
groups of women, such as women belonging to minority groups, indigenous women, refugee and
internally displaced women, migrant women, women living in rural or remote communities,
destitute women, women in institutions or in detention, women with disabilities, elderly women,
widows and women in situations of armed conflict, women who are otherwise discriminated
against, including on the basis of HIV status, and victims of commercial sexual exploitation,
Recalling the inclusion of gender-related crimes and crimes of sexual violence in the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the recognition by the ad hoc international
criminal tribunals that rape can constitute a war crime, a crime against humanity or a constitutive
act with respect to genocide or torture,