A/HRC/17/2 of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”, Welcoming the steps taken by the United Nations system to strengthen the physical and legal protection of women and girls facing violence, notably by advancing the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda, including through work on global indicators on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and the ongoing efforts to develop the monitoring, analysis and reporting mechanism on conflictrelated sexual violence by consolidating and strengthening United Nations efforts to promote the empowerment of women and the realization of their human rights through the creation of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and through the Secretary-General’s campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women”, Recognizing the adoption of regional instruments relating to the human rights of women and specifically on violence against women, including the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the ASEAN Region, which strengthen the implementation of international commitments relating to the human rights of women, Recognizing also that violence against women and girls persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of the enjoyment of human rights and a major impediment to achieving gender equality, development, peace and security and internationally agreed development goals, in particular the Millennium Development Goals, Underscoring that States have the obligation to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls, Underscoring also that the duty of States to exercise due diligence to provide protection to women and girls who have been subjected to or are at risk of violence includes using all appropriate means of a legal, political, administrative and social nature to provide access to justice, health care and support services that respond to their immediate needs, protect against further harm and continue to address the ongoing consequences of violence for women and girls, taking into consideration the impact of violence on their families and communities, Recalling the inclusion of gender-related crimes and crimes of sexual violence in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as well as the recognition by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals that rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute a war crime, a crime against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide or torture, Recognizing the importance of the full and equal participation of women and the involvement of civil society groups, in particular women’s organizations and networks, in the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies, measures and programmes relating to the protection of women facing violence as well as the protection and promotion of the human rights of women, Concerned that multiple, intersecting and aggravated forms of discrimination against women and girls increase their vulnerability and undermine their ability to protect themselves from violence, 1. Strongly condemns all acts of violence against women and girls, where these acts are perpetrated by the State, private persons or non-State actors, and calls for the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence in the family, within the general 30 GE.12-13630