A/HRC/23/48 cultural measures, including through bilateral and multilateral cooperation, to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, that leads to trafficking. The Protocol refers to the generic categories of measures that should be taken to discourage demand, 9 but is not more precise. The guide published to advise States on what steps to take to implement the Protocol points out that “demand reduction … could be achieved in part through legislative or other measures targeting those who knowingly use or take advantage of the services of victims of exploitation”. 10 21. The role of individual consumers in fuelling the exploitation of children, including cases when children are trafficked, is recognized in the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. In this Protocol, the need is expressed for raising public awareness to reduce consumer demand for the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. In addition to requiring them to punish specified acts and activities by criminal or penal law, the Optional Protocol requires States parties to “promote awareness in the public at large, including children, through information by all appropriate means, education and training, about the preventive measures and harmful effects of the offences referred to in the present Protocol” and “take appropriate measures aimed at effectively prohibiting the production and dissemination of material advertising the offences described in the present Protocol” (art. 9, paras. 2 and 5). 22. In the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recommended a set of principles and guidelines to put the human rights of trafficked persons at the centre of all efforts to prevent and combat trafficking and protect, assist and provide redress to victims. The document provides specific recommendations on addressing demand as part of prevention strategies. It highlights the importance of addressing demand as a root cause of trafficking and raising the effectiveness of law enforcement to discourage demand, and recommends analysing the factors that generate demand for exploitative commercial sexual services and exploitative labour and taking strong legislative, policy and other measures to address these issues. Principle 2 provides that States have a responsibility under international law to act with due diligence to prevent trafficking, to investigate and prosecute traffickers and to assist and protect trafficked persons. 23. In 2010 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a commentary on the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking, which provided further details about the human rights approach to preventing trafficking in persons, including measures to discourage demand. 24. The United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons includes several provisions suggesting that action be taken to discourage demand, including one referring to the need for “specific measures at national level to combat trafficking for labour exploitation and strive to educate consumers on those measures” (art. 22). 25. In 2011 the General Assembly in resolution 66/141 repeated a call to States “to combat the existence of a market that encourages such criminal practices [all forms of the sale of children, including for the purposes of the transfer of organs of the child for profit, child slavery, commercial sexual exploitation of children, child prostitution and child pornography] and take measures to eliminate the demand that fosters them”. 9 10 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto (2004), part two, para. 74. Ibid. 7