Following is UN Secretary‑General António Guterres’ message on the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, observed on 2 December:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the third Appraisal of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, held today:

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today approved 16 resolutions and two decisions, voting on five of them, including one expressing profound alarm that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise globally, as it concluded its seventy-sixth session.

The international community must speed up a stronger, more coordinated response to the scourge of human trafficking – integrating cutting-edge tools to outpace criminals whose online tactics have been increasingly sophisticated – the General Assembly heard today, as delegates concluded their high-level meeting on the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

In his first appearance in the Security Council today, the new Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court called for a more robust partnership between the two bodies towards ending impunity for atrocity crimes committed in Libya and elsewhere.

Iraq’s recent national elections, held under the 2005 Constitution and conducted in a well-run, generally peaceful manner, marked a hard-won victory for the country, despite taking place in the shadow of an unprecedented wave of violent countrywide demonstrations in 2019 and 2020, the top United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations peacekeeping mission reports that some 16,000 people fled to a camp located near its Temporary Operational Base, following deadly attack deadly attacks by the CODECO armed group in Drodro, Ituri province.  The mission has reinforced security in the area.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls, observed on 25 November:

Survivor wisdom must be leveraged to forge effective policies and action plans that can better protect women and children and end impunity for traffickers, many delegates and survivors themselves said today, as the General Assembly adopted a Political Declaration at the opening of its two-day high-level meeting on the appraisal of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today approved 12 resolutions, voting on two of them, with one of the texts calling for enhancing the capacity of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to increase pandemic and disaster preparedness and resilience, as Member States strive to recover from COVID-19 and its impacts.