2016 Resolution on the girl child

70th UNGA
29 Feb 2016

Res­o­lu­tion A/RES/70/138

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Analysis of precedential value

The UN Gen­eral Assem­bly adopted this res­o­lu­tion with­out a gen­eral vote in Feb­ru­ary 2016. The Gen­eral Assem­bly is the pre­em­i­nent gov­ern­ing body of the UN sys­tem and con­sists of all 193 UN Mem­ber States.

Used as precedent

gender equality

• “Urges States to improve the sit­u­a­tion of girl chil­dren liv­ing in poverty, in par­tic­u­lar extreme poverty, deprived of ade­quate food and nutri­tion, water and san­i­ta­tion facil­i­ties, with lim­ited or no access to basic phys­i­cal and men­tal health-care ser­vices, shel­ter, edu­ca­tion, par­tic­i­pa­tion and pro­tec­tion, tak­ing into account that, while a severe lack of goods and ser­vices hurts every human being, it is par­tic­u­larly threat­en­ing and harm­ful to the girl child and is fur­ther exac­er­bated by liv­ing in a child-headed house­hold, leav­ing her unable to enjoy her rights, to reach her full poten­tial and to par­tic­i­pate as a full mem­ber of soci­ety.” (para­graph 3)

gender equality, human rights

• “Urges all States to enact, uphold and strictly enforce laws and poli­cies aimed at pre­vent­ing and end­ing child, early and forced mar­riage and pro­tect­ing those at risk and to ensure that mar­riage is entered into only with the informed, free and full con­sent of the intend­ing spouses, to enact and strictly enforce laws con­cern­ing the min­i­mum legal age of con­sent and the min­i­mum age for mar­riage, to raise the min­i­mum age for mar­riage, engage all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, includ­ing girls, where nec­es­sary, and ensure that these laws are well known, to fur­ther develop and imple­ment holis­tic, com­pre­hen­sive and coor­di­nated poli­cies, plans of action and pro­grammes and to sup­port already mar­ried girls and ado­les­cents and ensure the pro­vi­sion of viable alter­na­tives and insti­tu­tional sup­port, espe­cially edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties for girls, to ensure the sur­vival, pro­tec­tion, devel­op­ment and advance­ment of the girl child in order to pro­mote and pro­tect the full enjoy­ment of her human rights and to ensure equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for girls, includ­ing by mak­ing such plans an inte­gral part of her total devel­op­ment process.” (para­graph 13)

human rights

• “Urges States to take all mea­sures nec­es­sary to ensure the full enjoy­ment by girls with dis­abil­i­ties of all human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms, on an equal basis with other chil­dren, and to adopt, imple­ment and strengthen appro­pri­ate poli­cies and pro­grammes designed to address their needs.” (para­graph 19)

positive legal determinants

• “Urges all States to enact and enforce leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect girls from all forms of vio­lence, dis­crim­i­na­tion, exploita­tion and harm­ful prac­tices in all set­tings, includ­ing female infan­ti­cide and pre­na­tal sex selec­tion, female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, rape, domes­tic vio­lence, incest, sex­ual abuse, sex­ual exploita­tion, child pros­ti­tu­tion and child pornog­ra­phy, traf­fick­ing and forced migra­tion, forced labour and child, early and forced mar­riage, and to develop age-appro­pri­ate, safe, con­fi­den­tial and dis­abil­ity-acces­si­ble pro­grammes and med­ical, social and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port ser­vices to assist girls who are sub­jected to vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion.” (para­graph 20)

• “Calls upon Mem­ber States to devise, enforce and strengthen effec­tive child- and youth-sen­si­tive mea­sures to com­bat, elim­i­nate and pros­e­cute all forms of traf­fick­ing in women and girls, includ­ing for sex­ual and eco­nomic exploita­tion, as part of a com­pre­hen­sive anti-traf­fick­ing strat­egy within wider efforts to elim­i­nate all forms of vio­lence against women and girls, includ­ing by tak­ing effec­tive mea­sures against the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of girls who are vic­tims of exploita­tion and ensur­ing that girls who have been exploited receive access to the nec­es­sary psy­choso­cial sup­port, and in this regard urges Mem­ber States, the United Nations and other inter­na­tional, regional and sub­re­gional orga­ni­za­tions, as well as civil soci­ety, in clud­ing non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, the pri­vate sec­tor and the media, to fully and effec­tively imple­ment the rel­e­vant pro­vi­sions of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Com­bat Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons and the activ­i­ties out­lined therein, with full respect for the Pro­to­col to Pre­vent, Sup­press and Pun­ish Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons, Espe­cially Women and Chil­dren, sup­ple­ment­ing the United Nations Con­ven­tion against Transna­tional Orga­nized Crime.” (para­graph 27)

key population and community leadership

• “Urges States to for­mu­late or review as needed com­pre­hen­sive, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and coor­di­nated national plans, pro­grammes or strate­gies to elim­i­nate all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence against women and girls, which should have ded­i­cated resources, be widely dis­sem­i­nated and pro­vide tar­gets and timeta­bles for imple­men­ta­tion, as well as effec­tive domes­tic enforce­ment pro­ce­dures through the estab­lish­ment of mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion mech­a­nisms involv­ing all par­ties con­cerned, includ­ing con­sul­ta­tions with women’s orga­ni­za­tions, giv­ing atten­tion to the rec­om­men­da­tions relat­ing to the girl child of the Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs of the Human Rights Coun­cil on vio­lence against women, its causes and con­se­quences, and on traf­fick­ing in per­sons, espe­cially women and chil­dren, and of the Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral on Vio­lence against Chil­dren.” (para­graph 22)

key and vulnerable populations

• “Rec­og­nizes that a con­sid­er­able num­ber of girl chil­dren are par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble, includ­ing orphans, chil­dren liv­ing on the street, inter­nally dis­placed and refugee chil­dren, chil­dren affected by traf­fick­ing and sex­ual and eco­nomic exploita­tion, chil­dren liv­ing with or affected by HIV and AIDS, and chil­dren who are incar­cer­ated or who live with­out parental sup­port, and there­fore urges States, with the sup­port of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, where rel­e­vant, to take appro­pri­ate mea­sures to address the needs of such chil­dren by imple­ment­ing national, sub­re­gional and regional poli­cies and strate­gies to build and strengthen gov­ern­men­tal, com­mu­nity and fam­ily capac­i­ties to pro­vide a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment for such chil­dren, includ­ing by pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate coun­sell­ing and psy­choso­cial sup­port, and ensur­ing their safety, enrol­ment in school and access to shel­ter, good nutri­tion and health and social ser­vices on an equal basis with other chil­dren.” (para­graph 24)

• “Urges all States and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to respect, pro­mote and pro­tect the rights of the girl child, tak­ing into account the p artic­u­lar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of the girl child in pre-con­flict, con­flict and post-con­flict sit­u­a­tions and in cli­mate- related and other haz­ards and nat­ural dis­as­ters, as well as in other human­i­tar­ian emer­gen­cies, all of which may result in the cre­ation of child-headed house­holds, and also urges States to take spe­cial mea­sures for the pro­tec­tion of girls in all phases of human­i­tar­ian emer­gen­cies, from relief to recov­ery, and in par­tic­u­lar to ensure that chil­dren have access to basic ser­vices, which include clean water, includ­ing safe drink­ing water, san­i­ta­tion and hygiene, to pro­tect them from sex­u­ally trans­mit­ted infec­tions, includ­ing HIV infec­tion, gen­der-based vio­lence, includ­ing rape, sex­ual abuse and sex­ual exploita­tion, tor­ture, abduc­tion and traf­fick­ing, i nclud­ing forced labour, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to refugee and dis­placed girls, and to take into account their spe­cial needs in dis­ar­ma­ment, demo­bi­liza­tion, reha­bil­i­ta­tion assis­tance and rein­te­gra­tion processes.” (para­graph 25)

combination prevention

• “Urges States and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to increase resources at all lev­els, par­tic­u­larly in the edu­ca­tion and health sec­tors, so as to enable young peo­ple, espe­cially girls, to gain the knowl­edge, atti­tudes and life skills that they need to ful­fil their social, eco­nomic and other poten­tial and over­come their chal­lenges, includ­ing the pre­ven­tion of HIV infec­tion and early preg­nancy, and to enjoy the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health, includ­ing sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health.” (para­graph 36)