Part II Protecting and promoting the rights of women and girls: NHRIs in action In relation to violence against women and girls, NHRIs agree to: • Where their mandate permits, conduct training of judicial and law enforcement officers, medical professionals, and other public officials on responding to violence against women, gender equality and women’s human rights (paragraph 18). • Promote measures, including penal provisions, preventive and rehabilitation measures to protect women and girls subject to trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation (paragraph 19). • Develop programmes to prevent and combat sexual harassment, and measures to protect women from sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence in the workplace, schools, or in other institutions such as places of detention (paragraph 21). • Establish or support adequately resourced critical services for victims of domestic and family violence, sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence, including refuges, specially trained health workers, rehabilitation, counselling and legal services, and ensure these services are accessible to particularly disadvantaged groups of women (paragraph 22). In relation to reproductive rights, NHRI agree to: • Encourage and aid the compilation of an evidence base (e.g. data, inquiries, research) concerning the exercise of reproductive rights and the right to sexual and reproductive health, including but not limited to cases of de jure and de facto discrimination in access to sexual and reproductive health care information and services, forced sterilization, forced abortion, child marriage, forced marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, biased sex selection and other harmful practices (paragraph 26). • Promote measures to ensure access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services and to remove barriers which hinder such access, and support the establishment of accountability mechanisms for the effective application of the laws and the provision of remedies when obligations have been breached (paragraph 28). APF ACTION PLAN ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND GIRLS: PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY APF member institutions agree to: • Monitor the promotion and protection of the full range of women’s human rights at the national level (paragraph 6). • Work in cooperation with non-governmental organizations and other civil society organisations to promote and protect women’s and girl’s human rights (paragraph 8). • Give particular attention to the needs and problems of women who are human rights defenders or who suffer discrimination because of the human rights issues they raise (paragraph 9). • Monitor the promotion and protection of the full range of women’s economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights at the national level using benchmarks such as the Millennium Development Goals and the UNDP Gender Empowerment Index to assess the progress made by States (paragraph 12). Chapter 7: Promoting and monitoring the human rights of women and girls | 79