CAT/C/COG/CO/1 (b) Continue, in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, its efforts to identify refugees and asylum seekers and to ensure their protection, in accordance with international law, by respecting, in particular, the principle of non-refoulement, including during specific police operations; (c) Ensure that the detention of asylum seekers and refugees is used only as a measure of last resort and, where necessary, for as short a period as possible; (d) Ensure that the legal safeguards are respected, in accordance with article 11 of the Convention; (e) Ensure that investigations are carried out effectively and that refugees and asylum seekers allegedly subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by State or private actors, including victims of rape and domestic violence, have access to remedies, as set out by the Committee in its general comment No. 2 (2007) on the implementation of article 2 by States parties; (f) Ratify the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Trafficking in persons 19. The Committee notes with interest the information provided by the State party on the anti-trafficking bill, a national action plan against trafficking in persons currently being prepared in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the agreement signed between Congo and Benin in 2011 on the protection of children against trafficking in persons. The Committee notes with concern that the State party has not yet deposited the instrument of ratification of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime or signed the Multilateral Cooperation Agreement to Combat Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, in West and Central Africa (Abuja Agreement) (arts. 2 and 16). The Committee invites the State party to speed up the adoption of the anti-trafficking bill and to accede to the international instruments combating trafficking in persons. Violence against women 20. In the light of reports of very large numbers of women victims of sexual violence in times of conflict and of the information provided by the State party on current cases of sexual violence against increasingly young girls, the Committee notes with interest the existence of a bill on gender violence currently awaiting adoption by the State party prior to submission to Parliament. However, the Committee has not received any information on the content of that bill, the mechanisms for combating and preventing violence against women, especially sexual abuse and exploitation in prison and in conflict areas, or the time frame for the adoption of the bill (arts. 2 and 16). The Committee invites the State party to adopt, without delay, a comprehensive law punishing all forms of violence against women, including marital rape, female genital mutilation and sexual abuse and exploitation of women in prison and in conflict areas. Training 21. The Committee regrets the paucity of the information provided by the State party on human rights training programmes for law enforcement agents, officials of the General Directorate of Prison Administration, medical staff, forensic specialists and judges. It notes with concern that the Standing Technical Committee on the Dissemination of International GE.15-10644 7

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