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Article 13.Legitimacy and validity of documentsA. Negotiation textsSecond session: 8-12 March 1999Argentina and United States of America (A/AC.254/4/Add.3/Rev.1)“Article 11 1“Verification of documents“Each State Party shall, at the request of another State Party and subject to thedomestic laws of the requested State, verify without undue or unreasonable delay thelegitimacy and validity of travel or identity documents issued in the name of therequested State and suspected of being used for trafficking in [women and children][persons].”Rolling text (A/AC.254/4/Add.3/Rev.2)“Article 11“Verification of documents“Each State Party shall, at the request of another State Party and subject to thedomestic laws of the requested State, verify without undue or unreasonable 2 delaythe legitimacy and validity of travel or identity documents issued in the name of therequested State and suspected of being used for trafficking in persons.”Notes by the Secretariat1. The version of article 11 contained in document A/AC.254/Add.3/Rev.2 remainedunchanged in the intermediate drafts of the protocol (A/AC.254/4/Add.3/Revs.3 and 4).2. At the informal consultations held during the fifth session of the Ad HocCommittee, a restructured version of the draft protocol was submitted by Belgium, Poland1Australia and Canada suggested that several articles in this protocol should be based on articles contained in the proposalsof the United States and Canada regarding the draft migrants protocol (A/AC.254/4/Add.1/Rev.1). One of the articlesthus adapted was the present one.2In a position paper submitted at the fourth session of the Ad Hoc Committee, the Special Rapporteur on violenceagainst women, its causes and consequences proposed that the phrase “undue or unreasonable” should be deleted in orderto facilitate prompt and efficient verification of documents. In addition, the Special Rapporteur proposed that the phrase “thepossession of invalid documents shall not be used as a ground to arrest, detain or prosecute trafficked persons” should beadded at the end of the draft text in order to focus attention on protecting the rights and needs of trafficked persons (seeA/AC.254/CRP.13).415