The combined effects of racial and gender discrimination on the advancement of women and their achievement of equality with men have attracted increasing attention, particularly in the implementation of the critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action, and in relation to substantive issues such as migration, including violence against women migrant workers and trafficking in women and girls. The Economic and Social Council’s agreed conclusions 1997/2 and preparations for the Third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which will take place in Durban, South Africa, from 31 August to 7 September 2001, have also given greater prominence to the combined effects on women of gender and racial discrimination. Thus, at its fifty-sixth session in March 2000, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted a general recommendation on gender-related dimensions of racial discrimination (ICERD/C/56/Misc.21/Rev.3). The special session of the General Assembly on "Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the 21st century" (June 2000) made several recommendations directed at the elimination of racially motivated violence against women and girls.