General Assembly

The General Assembly this afternoon adopted by consensus, as orally revised, a resolution on the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, deciding also to establish a trust fund for victims, especially women and children.

By a vote of 122 in favour to none against, with 41 abstentions, the General Assembly today adopted, as orally revised, a resolution calling on States and international organizations to provide financial resources, build capacity and transfer technology, particularly to developing countries, in scaling up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all.

With the inception of a new law and the country’s first shelter to assist victims, Albania was strengthening its arsenal to stamp out domestic violence, the South-Eastern European country’s delegation told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today.

Fifteen years after ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Papua New Guinea was still struggling to change entrenched cultural attitudes and norms that kept women from attaining crucial government and political positions and contributed to high rates of violence against them, the country’s delegation told the Women’s Anti-Discrimination Committee today.

With amendments to the country’s Constitution, the enactment of a new Penal Code and the creation of the Committee on the Equal Rights and Opportunities within the Turkish Grand Assembly, Turkey had worked consistently over the last decade to improve the status of women, the Turkish delegation told the forty-sixth session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today.

In today’s meeting of the Women’s Anti-Discrimination Committee, Australia heralded the notable strides it had made through advocacy, policy, legislation and national strategies to empower women, asserting that it rated well against international measures of success, but acknowledged, too, the remaining challenges, especially facing indigenous women and girls, in reducing violence against women, improving women’s economic security, and ensuring women’s equal place in society.

The General Assembly extended the terms of office of seven permanent judges and nine ad litem judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as well as the terms of office of 13 permanent judges and 10 ad litem judges on the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in order for those courts to meet their revised completion strategies.

Millions around the world would give 67 minutes of community service in tribute to Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy, for the 67 years he dedicated to a fair and just society, said South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mshsabane, at a gathering of the General Assembly today.

Despite a decade of significant social and economic changes and the 2009 global economic and financial crisis, the Russian Federation remained intent on using legislation, judicial reforms and increases in social benefit payments to improve women’s status, members of a well-represented Russian delegation told the Women’s Anti-Discrimination Committee today.

More than a year after the abrogation of its Constitution in April 2009, Fiji was working with a series of newly established decrees to ensure that the rights of women were protected as the South Pacific island nation shaped a new Constitution by 2012 before holding elections two years later, members of the Fiji Government delegation told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today.