S/2017/249 (b) To put in place legislative and institutional arrangements to comprehensively address conflict-related sexual violence and prevent its recurrence, including health care, psychosocial support, socioeconomic reintegration and livelihood assistance; shelters; legal aid; victim and witness protection laws and programmes; effective prosecution of sexual violence crimes; safeguards to prevent individuals accused of violations from being recruited, retained or promoted within the security forces (vetting); the exclusion of such crimes from general amnesties and statutes of limitations; education that fosters gender equality; and programmes to ensure that women, including those who become pregnant as a result of rape, have the information, support and services that they need, including measures for the safe termination of unwanted pregnancies. In these efforts, particular attention should be paid to ethnic or religious minorities, women in rural or remote areas, those living with disabilities, male survivors, women and children associated with armed groups, women and children released from situations of abduction, forced marriage, sexual slavery and trafficking by armed groups, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons, noting that different forms of sexual violence may require specialized responses; (c) To improve conviction rates for crimes of sexual violence by integrating legal support options with medical and psychosocial care and extending the reach of these services to remote and conflict-affected areas; (d) To give due consideration to recognizing conflict-related sexual violence as a form of persecution that may serve as grounds for asylum or refugee status; (e) To ensure that all refugee-receiving countries adopt measures to mitigate the risk of sexual violence, to make services available to survivors and to provide them with the option to document their cases for future accountability processes; (f) To give consideration to clarifying the legal status of undocumented refugee children, including children conceived as a result of rape, and the right of mothers to confer their nationality upon their children, in line with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, to avoid possible statelessness; (g) To support community mobilization campaigns to help shift the stigma of sexual violence from the victims to the perpetrators, including by engaging with religious and traditional leaders, as well as local journalists and human rights defenders; (h) To increase the representation of women in national police services, and to establish specialized units within the police, given the positive correlation between the percentage of female officers and the reporting rates for sexual violence crimes, and the need to ensure that detained women are held under the supervision of female guards; (i) To ensure that ceasefire and peace agreements signed contain provisions that, at a minimum, stipulate sexual violence as a prohibited act in the definition of ceasefire; 17-05090 29/33