A/HRC/50/25 Paternalistic approaches and a lack of trained staff, coupled with a lack of dedicated mechanisms and procedures to engage with children, are often used to justify excluding children, including girls, from discussions and activities of intergovernmental bodies, including at the United Nations and at national, regional and global level. Girls’ and young women’s activism within the United Nations is often reserved for a certain elite, while the most marginalized girls and young women, in particular those living in disadvantaged or remote communities, in practice do not have access to United Nations spaces. Moreover, girls and young women are not genuinely included as co-creators and co-designers of solutions. They are not empowered to set the agenda, their inputs are often not properly reflected and there is often no sustained engagement after meetings. They are generally pigeonholed in discussions concerning “girls’ issues”, rather than being associated with other important processes, such as peace and security, the Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19 recovery. Furthermore, a developed capacity and specific framework for child and youth participation and safeguarding, in order to involve girls and young women in a safe, empowering and effective manner, are generally lacking. Some girls and young women reported feeling unprotected and exposed to retaliation and intimidation by their national authorities and non-State actors for engaging with the United Nations system, including human rights mechanisms, without receiving any tangible support from the United Nations. 34. Certain groups of girls and young women may be further marginalized in public spaces because of multiple and intersecting grounds of discrimination. Girls and young women belonging to disadvantaged groups, including, for example, poor, rural, Roma and indigenous youth, migrants and those in street situations, are still not sufficiently heard. Testimonies from girls and young women with disabilities demonstrated that they are often left out of larger networks, movements and initiatives because of the lack of accommodation of their needs, including, for example, the use of sign language. Digital illiteracy and unaffordable technical solutions and devices, such as screen reading, voice software, braille writers or video magnifiers, represent further challenges. Moreover, some feminist movements lack a disability perspective, as much as some disability rights movements lack a feminist perspective, with the consequence that specific issues affecting girls and young women at the intersection of both are overlooked. 35. While the lack of language adapted to girls and young women is a general challenge, language barriers often pose additional constraints on the activism of girls and young women, in particular of those belonging to indigenous peoples and minorities, depriving them also of the opportunity to network and engage with other organizations and movements. Some testimonies also disclosed that distinctions along ethnic lines, including tribal affiliations, might render difficult the work of activists that were perceived as “strangers” and thus as not legitimate to discuss certain issues at the local or national level. 3. Offline and online harassment and violence 36. The lack of safety and security are major barriers to girls’ and young women’s activism. The frequent occurrence of attacks, harassment and violence in the street and on public transport, including in the form of unwanted sexual remarks, unwelcome sexual behaviour and threats of rape and stalking, deter and limit girls’ and young women’s activities and travel outside their home, which impedes their access to and use of spaces for activism. Such risks increase during protests and demonstrations and in conflict, disaster and other crisis situations. 29 Moreover, widespread sexual harassment and abuse is reported within political movements and organizations. 37. Some girls and young women reported threats and violence, including bullying, which often also targeted their families and friends and were aimed at silencing their voices. One of them explained that “sometimes we cannot engage on issues we are passionate about because they are too dangerous”. Some girls and young women also reported a lack of protection by the State, which in some cases perpetuated the threats or violence through its security forces. Episodes of violence included inappropriate touching, exposing underwear during arrest, humiliating and unnecessary strip searches, threats of rape, forced nudity and gendered and 29 10 See A/75/184.