Enhancement of Legislation on Preventing Torture and Protecting Children from Bullying Discussed at Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry’s Dialogue Platform on Human Dimension, Delovoy Kazakhstan reports.
At a regular meeting of the Consultative and Advisory body Dialogue Platform on Human Dimension under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, the topic of discussion was the preparation for the presentation of Kazakhstan's national report on the implementation of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The event was chaired by Usen Suleimen, Ambassador-at-Large of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his opening remarks, he stressed that the topic of combating torture continues to be an acute and worrying one for society, and today's meeting of the dialogue platform is a good opportunity to compare notes between the state authorities and the civil sector.
The representative of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs made a report on this issue from the government agencies, and they spoke in detail about the work to improve national legislation and reforms of the Ministry in the sphere of combating torture. From the civil sector, specific proposals were made by representatives of the Public Association "Kadyr Kasiet", KIBHR, the Coalition of NGOs of Kazakhstan against Torture, the Public Fund "Charter for Human Rights" and the Centre for Applied Research "Talap".
The second item on the agenda was a discussion of protecting children from bullying as part of absolute freedom from torture. Under this item, the report of the regional public organization “United Children and Youth Organization "Zhas Ulan" and proposals of the Public Association "Kadyr Kasiet" were presented, which were highly appreciated by the participants of the meeting for their novelty and modern approaches.
In the discussion that followed, which was open and productive, the participants presented a large number of concrete proposals and methods for implementing reforms in the areas under discussion.
At the end of the event, Suleimen thanked the participants and called to continue the active joint work of all branches of government together with the civil sector to further strengthen the system of human rights protection in our country.
The session was traditionally attended by members of the Parliament, the Secretary of the Presidential Commission for Human Rights, representatives of the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Council, the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, interested ministries, Kazakh human rights NGOs, as well as guests of the platform - representatives of international partners, including the UN Development Program, OSCE, the European Union, the U.S. and Canadian Embassies in Nur-Sultan, and the USAID.
