A/HRC/35/5
alia, introducing and enforcing laws and policies that promote equality for women
and girls and prohibit violence against them, as well as repealing discriminatory laws,
laws that have a discriminatory impact and laws that enable harmful practices. It also
requires the introduction of measures to promote women’s control over their bodies
and lives, including those that give them adequate access to education, sexual and
reproductive health and rights, information and services. Women’s equal rights with
regard to employment also must be assured. There is a need to invest in women and
girls as agents of change towards the eradication of child, early and forced marriage
and other harmful practices and for the full enjoyment of their fundamental human
rights. Interventions should be guided by the principles of the best interest of the child
and non-discrimination, and should apply to all individuals and communities, without
discrimination on the grounds of origin, ethnicity or social status. There was a call to
recognize and prioritize the need to engage other sectors, such as gender affairs, child
protection, education, health and justice, in global, regional and subregional responses
to child and forced marriage.
47.
In addition to the recommendations contained in sections II to V above, in the
closing session experts recommended that the international community, States
members of the United Nations, civil society organizations and other relevant
stakeholders:
(a)
Promote locally relevant, contextualized initiatives to eliminate child and
forced marriage. These initiatives should be developed with the full and meaningful
participation of local communities, including women and girls, religious and
traditional leaders, teachers and others who have an influence in the matter;
(b)
Ensure more regular independent and objective assessments of global,
regional and national programmes with a view to learning from successes and failures
and to documenting good practices. Women, girls and affected communities should be
involved meaningfully in monitoring and evaluation processes. The impact
assessments of initiatives should extend to the local level to ensure programmes
respond to actual drivers and root causes of child and forced marriage and to the
needs of women and girls;
(c)
Provide increased support to the work of regional and subregional
organizations to address child and forced marriage and opportunities to exchange
lessons learned and good practices at the regional and subregional levels;
(d)
Ensure greater financing of grass-roots initiatives to address child and
forced marriage, particularly those amplifying the voice and agency of adolescent girls
and young women. Such initiatives have an enormous potential to facilitate
intergenerational dialogue and challenge the cultural norms that support harmful
practices;
(e)
Promote greater accountability at the international level for rights-based
efforts to eliminate child and forced marriage, including through all relevant
reporting mechanisms, such as the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Universal
Periodic Review. Strong linkages should be established between the work and
recommendations of the United Nations human rights architecture, including the
Human Rights Council and human rights mechanisms, and the implementation and
monitoring of relevant goals and targets of the Sustainable Development Goals,
particularly Goal 5.3 to eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced
marriage and female genital mutilations;
(f)
Strengthen efforts to ensure accountability at the national level,
including monitoring and tracking funding for women’s rights and child protection;
ensure national human rights institutions have the mandate, resources and capacity to
hold States accountable for addressing the practice adequately; strengthen the role of
parliamentarians to monitor the implementation of policies and allocation of
resources to eliminate child and forced marriage; and protect civil society space and
support the engagement of civil society organizations in the area of child and forced
marriage;
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