CAT/C/GIN/CO/1 The State party should: (a) Step up its efforts and urgently enforce effective mechanisms to prevent and punish all forms of violence against women and girls, including by ensuring that all acts of violence are promptly, effectively and impartially investigated and prosecuted, that perpetrators, including law enforcement officers, are brought to justice and that victims are provided with redress. The State party should establish not only an effective complaints mechanism for women and girls but also a monitoring mechanism to fulfil its positive duty to prevent all forms of violence against them; (b) Ensure that the Legislative Reform Commission categorizes rape and sexual abuse, in the legislative texts under revision, as crimes against the person and not as “immoral acts and indecent assault”, and includes in the Criminal Code the various forms of sexual violence, including marital rape and domestic violence; (c) Launch prevention programmes for combating the stigmatization of women victims of violence, create empowerment programmes for women, set up shelters for victims, and conduct awareness-raising campaigns, since rape is still a major taboo in the country and a cause of exclusion from both the family and society. Female genital mutilation 17. Despite the adoption of Act No. L010/AN/2000 of 10 July 2000 and articles 405 et seq. of the Children’s Code, the Committee notes with great concern the statement of the Guinean delegation that there has been no prosecution or conviction under that law to date. The Committee therefore doubly deplores the fact that, in January 2013, 96 per cent of girls and women were still subject to female genital mutilation, as indicated by the Guinean delegation during the consideration of the State party’s second periodic report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child at its sixty-second session, in 2013 (arts. 2, 12, 13, 14 and 16). In light of the high prevalence of female genital mutilation and the ineffectiveness of the relevant laws, the Committee recommends that the State party should, with a view to eradicating this practice, adopt a holistic approach and formulate a national plan of action incorporating the following measures: (a) Urgently strengthen measures to prevent and eliminate the practice of female genital mutilation by ensuring that its existing laws on the subject are effectively enforced in accordance with the Convention. To this end, it should facilitate the submission of complaints by victims, conduct prompt and effective investigations, prosecute those responsible and impose appropriate penalties on the guilty parties commensurate with the serious nature of their crimes; (b) Expand national awareness-raising campaigns, in particular among families, on the harmful effects of the practice and devise programmes to offer alternative sources of income to those who perform female genital mutilation as a means of livelihood, as recommended in 2007 by the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women at its thirty-ninth session (CEDAW/C/GIN/CO/6, para. 25); (c) Provide adequate redress, suitable compensation, and the fullest possible rehabilitation to victims; (d) Set up shelters for girls and women who have left their homes to avoid being subject to such practices. 8 GE.14-05766