EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2015-2019)

The EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy for 2015-2019 aims to promote and protect human rights and support democracy in non-EU countries. The main objectives are boosting ownership of local actors, addressing human rights challenges, such as gender equality, women’s rights, empowerment and participation of women and girls, ensuring a comprehensive human rights approach to conflicts and crises, fostering better coherence and consistency, andpromoting more effective EU human rights and democracy support policy.

Objective 14 focuses on "Promoting gender equality, women’s rights, empowerment and participation of women and girls" and sets out the following action: "In the context of EU external action and development cooperation, prioritise actions targeting, inter alia the protection of physical and psychological integrity of women and girls through activities which help protect women's human rights and freedom from violence with special attention to ending Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)..."