News and press releases

More than 150 representatives of civil society, international organizations and academia, as well as government and elected officials, gathered in Kyiv on 26 and 27 September to review the results of activities carried out with the support of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to strengthen the human dimension of security in Ukraine.

Parliamentary oversight of security forces and ways of dealing with challenges in its implementation were the focus of the session of the Forum for Security Co-operation held under Serbia’s Chairmanship on 27 September 2017 in Vienna.

BISHKEK, 27 September 2017- Kazakh specialists shared their experience in the development of an electronic unified state registry of crimes and misdemeanours and other software applications used by the offices of the public prosecutor in Kazakhstan with representatives of the Kyrgyz General Prosecutor’s Office (GPO) and other stakeholders during a three-day visit of the Kazakh General Prosecutor’s staff to Bishkek, supported by the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek, from 20 to 23 September 2017.

On 21 September, the OSCE Gender Section, UN Women and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, brought together experts, participating States and civil society to discuss and identify successful approaches to the prevention of violence against women at an event held on 21 September 2017 in Warsaw.

Financial gain is the main incentive for most serious and organized crime networks, and stripping them of their proceeds is the most effective way to dismantle them. Yet according to Europol, only 1.2 per cent of illicit proceeds are confiscated in the European Union, leaving 98.8 per cent at the disposal of criminals. Why is only such a small fragment of crime proceeds confiscated? What can be done to strengthen criminal justice measures to recover illegal assets and disrupt criminal groups? These are the key questions addressed by participants in the 2017 OSCE Annual Police Experts Meeting entitled “Crime Should Not Pay” which started today in the Hofburg in Vienna.

The OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe organized the first meeting of the sub-working group on mainstreaming gender into police reform under the Ministry of the Interior on 25 September 2017. The meeting took place on the premises of the Interior Ministry and gathered all members of the sub-working group, which includes both civil society organizations from the regions of Tajikistan working on gender issues and representatives from the Interior Ministry and the Committee on Women and Family Affairs.

BERLIN, 25 September 2017 – The 24 September parliamentary elections in Germany were a strong demonstration of the country’s commitment to democratic processes and provided an opportunity for voters to freely express their will, concluded international observers from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly today following their first-ever election observation mission in the country. The efficiency and professionalism of the election administration, as well as a high level of public confidence in the overall integrity of the electoral process, contributed to the conduct of democratic elections.