CRC/C/OPSC/TKM/CO/1
Adopted by the Committee: 12-30 January 2015
Published by the Committee: 4 February 2015
Issues raised:
Ratification and national policy:
The Committee welcomes the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, in March 2005; The ILO Conventions No. 182 concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, in November 2010, and No. 138 concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, in March 2012; Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and to the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol), in March 2005; The Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, in November 1997; and, The adoption of relevant national legislation to safeguard the rights of the child, including the Law on the Guarantees of the Rights of the Child (5 July 2002), the Human Trafficking Act (14 December 2007), the Guarantees of Young People’s Right to work Act (1 February 2005), the Code of Criminal Procedure (18 April 2009), the Criminal Code (10 May 2010), the Labour Code (18 April 2009), the Social Security Code (17 March 2007), and the Legal Status of foreign Nationals in Turkmenistan Act (26 March 2011) (para.4,5).
Sexual exploitation:
The Committee is concerned that targeted preventive measures against the exploitation of children, including their engagement in forced labour, prostitution and pornography, and measures to identify and address the root causes of the offences and extent thereof, remain limited (para.24).
The Committee remains concerned that the national legal framework does not criminalize all elements of articles 2 and 3 of the Protocol, in particular: Article 129 of the Criminal Code does not cover sufficiently the sale of children for the purpose of forced labour, in line with art. 3, 1 (a) (i) c of the Optional Protocol; Article 164 of the Criminal Code does not explicitly prohibit possession of child pornography, in line with art. 3 (1) (ii) (c) of the Optional Protocol; Improperly inducing consent, as an intermediary, for the adoption of a child in violation of applicable international legal instruments on adoption is not clearly prohibited under the Criminal Code; and, the use of the Internet for the dissemination of child pornography or other forms of sexual exploitation (e.g. recruitment for child prostitution) has not been sufficiently addressed and is not explicitly criminalized (para.26).
The Committee is concerned that the State party’s recovery and reintegration measures are limited to victims of trafficking and do not adequately take into account the needs of child victims of sale of children, child prostitution and pornography offences covered under the Optional Protocol (para.39).
