risk of being subjected to violations of their right to life, to be free from torture and other ill-treatment or other serious human rights violation in their country of origin or habitual residence must not be returned to those countries. 239. Crossing borders: When travelling to another participating State, human rights defenders should not be subjected to border checks that are disproportionate and that fail to respect their dignity. In some participating States, however, the use of practices intended to intimidate and harass at border crossings persist, with reports suggesting that human rights defenders are sometimes singled out. Such practices include disproportionate body searches, the requirement to remove clothing or excessive luggage searches. Reported instances of harassment of human rights defenders when crossing borders also include the confiscation, without explanation, of leaflets, brochures, publications and other hand-out materials that are needed to carry out human rights activities. Furthermore, when crossing borders, human rights defenders have also faced arbitrary confiscation of equipment, including IT equipment with private data. Such practices may amount to undue interference in the right to freedom of expression, the right to seek and impart information or the right to private life and should be eliminated. 240. Border checks should be carried out in such a way as to fully respect human dig- nity and the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination. In this regard, participating States have pledged “[to] promote co-operation between their border services, customs authorities, agencies issuing travel documents and visas, and law enforcement and migration agencies, as well as other competent national structures”, with a view to promoting “dignified treatment of all individuals wanting to cross borders, in conformity with relevant national legal frameworks, international law, in particular human rights, refugee, and humanitarian law, and relevant OSCE commitments”.345 In accordance with this commitment, everyone, including women human rights defenders and those belonging to vulnerable or minority groups, such as national, ethnic, religious, linguistic and sexual minorities and persons with disability, among others, should be treated with respect at border checks, including when body searches are conducted, and must not be subjected to humiliating or degrading treatment because of their identity, physical appearance or other factors. 345  Ljubljana 2005, “Border Security and Management Concept: Framework for Co-operation by the OSCE Participating States”, paras. 4 and 4.5. In line with this commitment, Article 6 of the Schengen Border Code Regulation, for example, also stipulates that “border guards shall, in the performance of their duties, fully respect human dignity, in particular in cases involving vulnerable persons” and only take measures that are proportionate and non-discriminatory. See Regulation (EC) No. 562/ 2006 of the European Parliament and the Council establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code), 15 March 2006. 110 Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders