On Friday 11 May, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the CERD Committee) called on Kyrgyzstan to adopt comprehensive anti-discrimination law, acting on a recommendation made by the Equal Rights Trust, on behalf of our partners, the Kyrgyzstani Coalition for Equality.

This evening, in Warsaw, the Equal Rights Trust will bring together participants at the 2017 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Human Dimension Implementation Meeting to discuss the need for states in Central Asia to adopt comprehensive equality laws. Our event is being held alongside Europe’s largest annual human rights conference, which brings together government and non-government representatives from all 57 OSCE participating states to discuss states' commitment to democracy and human rights.

In July, the Equal Rights Trust completed its final factfinding mission as part of its work promoting the implementation of three UN conventions and seven core International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions in nine countries around the world. During our missions, we have met with approximately 400 representatives from civil society and trade unions, gathering critical information on how best to strengthen their efforts to monitor and advocate for the effective implementation of the conventions in their respective countries.

On 20 and 21 December, the Equal Rights Trust launched three new comprehensive reports examining discrimination and inequality in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Published as these three countries mark the 25th year of their independence, the reports provide unprecedented insights into discrimination on the basis of religion, ethnicity, political opinion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and other grounds in states where little has previously been reported on such issues.