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	Victims of Torture must not face reprisals for seeking redress by United Nations Committee against Torture   An arbitrarily detained man reaches out to United Nations human rights bodies for justice. While the United Nations body rules in his favour, the man faces grave reprisals for speaking out in defence of his rights. He is denied medical treatment, placed under solitary confinement and allegedly beaten by prison authorities.   Today, on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, we remind States that they have an obligation to protect such individuals and to ensure that they do not face reprisals or intimidation for cooperating with United Nations bodies.   Every year, the Committee against Torture and independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council receive individual communications from victims of torture, and information about alleged violations from human rights defenders and civil society actors from all regions of the world to be considered in their reports. Many detainees, at great personal risk, find the courage to share their traumatic experiences of torture and ill-treatment with the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and the Special Rapporteur on Torture during their visits to detention centres.   Every year, hundreds of rehabilitation centres, small and large, supported by the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, provide indispensable humanitarian, medical and legal assistance to thousands of victims of torture and their family members.   Many of those victims and actors who enable us to do our work by providing invaluable expertise and by sharing the sufferings they have endured, experience intimidation and reprisals.   Reprisals against people who cooperate with the United Nations mechanisms in protecting and advancing human rights are absolutely unacceptable and are in violation of international law and States’ legal obligations. There must be an effective means of ensuring that reprisals do not occur, and if they do, the individuals involved and the State must be held accountable.   Under the Convention against Torture, States have an obligation to take steps to ensure that complainants and witnesses or any other individual or organizations that cooperate with the Committee are protected against ill-treatment, intimidation or reprisals. Similarly, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture calls on States parties to fully respect their obligation under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture to ensure that individuals it meets during the course of its visits are not sanctioned as a result of their cooperation.   In urging States to establish and support rehabilitation centres or facilities where victims of torture can receive treatment, the General Assembly stipulated recently that States should also ensure the safety of their staff and patients.   On this Day, we stand in solidarity with those who, after having suffered the worst forms of torture and ill-treatment, place their trust in United Nations mechanisms despite the risk of reprisals. It is imperative that States translate their commitment to the fight against torture with measures that guarantee that victims and human rights advocates engaging with the United Nations mechanisms against torture will not be subjected to reprisals and re-victimization.   * This joint statement was issued by the United Nations Committee against Torture, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the Board of Trustees of the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. Visit the related web page
	Curbing Human Trafficking in Kazakstan by Almaz Kumenov - Central Asia Intstitute for War & Peace Reporting   28 May 12   Government needs to do more to combat sexual exploitation and forced labour.   People-smuggling and forced labour are thriving in Kazakstan, and lacklustre responses from government, police and the legal system are part of the problem, a leading anti-trafficking activist says.   Kazakstan’s geographical location as Central Asia’s gateway to Russia and other countries is being exploited by criminal groups. In its 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, the US State Department said Kazakstan had become an end destination and, to a lesser extent, a source and transit country for victims of forced labour and sexual exploitation.   As a transit country, Kazakstan is a stopping-off point for people brought in from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and then then transported to destinations including Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Greece. Women may be tricked into making the trip and then forced into the sex industry in the country they end up in.   Forced labour is also a problem within Kazakstan itself, and while coercion into the sex trade is an issue, there are other forms such as people being effectively enslaved in farming or as domestic servants.   Activists say combating trafficking and forced labour is difficult because few people are aware of the problem, and corrupt police officers often turn a blind eye. Even when cases are reported, few ever make it to court.   IWPR discussed these issues with Nina Balabaeva, the head of Rodnik, a rescue and rehabilitation centre for women and children which runs a shelter for trafficking victims in Almaty. Balabaeva described how traffickers entrap people with offers of legitimate work, and how shortfalls in the law and a lack of specialist anti-trafficking police allow the trade to continue.   Nina Balabaeva: There is both labour and sexual exploitation here [in Central Asia generally]. People in search of an income accept tempting job offers and travel to other countries where they end up in the hands of the traffickers, who take their documents from them and can effectively do what they like with them.   There’s also domestic trafficking – from village to town, and also vice versa. In addition to the traditional scenario of unemployed villagers going off to town to earn money, there’s a reverse flow as well to the fields, farms, pasturelands, and peasant landholdings which are desperately short of labour.   Trends are changing in this country. The start of the 2000s saw a mass outflow of girls [from Kazakstan] abroad, to Turkey, the Emirates, Greece and elsewhere, but now Kazakstan is itself receiving illegal migrants from neighbouring states. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain the same – people leave there to other countries. The direction of labour migration – for men – is to Russia, whereas for sexual exploitation it’s Turkey and the Emirates as before, and more recently the Philippines. The geographical reach is widening.   Our refuge was established in 2006 and since then it has helped up to 150 people, most of them women. The total includes 119 women aged between 18 and 30, and 31 men aged from 20 to 40. Of the total, 29 people were first coerced into labour while they were under 18.   Citizens of Uzbekistan made up the largest number, followed by Kazakstan nationals and then people from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. We’ve also had applications for help from individuals from Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Turkmenistan.   IWPR: How do people get ensnared by traffickers?   Balabaeva: A typical scenario is that some sympathetic man or woman, often recommended by an acquaintance, will suggest they spend some time working abroad as a nanny, waitress, private tutor or in some other apparently respectable position.   On arrival, people discover they are there to perform completely different duties. The victims’ passports are confiscated on the pretext of registering them with authorities. From then on, life becomes hell for them.   IWPR: Opinion polls on trafficking reveal that some people believe female victims of sexual exploitation are to blame themselves, for falling into a trap out of naivety. How would you respond to that?   Balabaeva: I don’t agree with that view – it’s a stereotype. It’s human nature to make mistakes, to trust people and to be naive. Young women aren’t warned in advance that they are to be sold for sexual exploitation, are they?   I’ve heard this view blaming trafficking victims for their circumstances even from judges and prosecutors who are meant to provide protection and enforce the law.   The problem is that there are people who simply have nothing to eat. You can’t blame them for trying to survive. Visit the related web page
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