28    HUMAN RIGHTS “ We welcome OSCE/ ODIHR’s initiative to raise and address the issue of sexual and gender-based violence in closed facilities and to map good practices of prevention and protection at the regional level,” Azamat Shambilov, Director of the Central Asia Office of Penal Reform International (PRI), “Practitioners’ meeting on preventing and addressing sexual and gender based violence in places of deprivation of liberty”, Warsaw 17-18 October 2016. or belief communities in Kyrgyzstan. The event, organized with the assistance of the State Committee on Religious Affairs and the Presidential Administration of the Kyrgyz Republic, brought together 65 participants from relevant state bodies. 41 recommendations for practical reforms and future activities, involving freedom of religion or belief and promoting dialogue, were made to state authorities, civil society organisations, religious or belief communities and ODIHR. In Ukraine, a final event concluding the ODIHR project on Promoting Security for Religious Communities and Others in the Regions of Ukraine was held in Kyiv on 25 and 26 February 2016. Fifty-eight participants attended the event, including representatives of state and regional authorities, civil society organizations and religious or belief communities. The event gathered beneficiaries from all project activities and with national-level decision-makers to discuss lessons learned from the implementation of the project and to formulate recommendations for the future. In total, Jointly with European Network of National Human Rights Institutions, and in partnership with the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs and the Georgian Public Defender’s Office, ODIHR organized its 2016 NHRI Academy in Tbilisi, from 30 May to 3 June. At the event, 25 participants, mid- to senior-level staff member of NHRIs from 21 OSCE participating States, attended training sessions on international standards for the status of NHRIs, human rights monitoring, NHRI-civil society co-operation, torture prevention and human rights protection in countering terrorism. On 7 June in Riga, ODIHR and the European Organization of Military Associations EUROMIL hosted a roundtable on the role of military associations and unions in Central and Eastern Europe in safeguarding the rights of servicemen and servicewomen . The roundtable gathered 27 representatives from military associations and unions, authorities, ombudsinstitutions and civil society organizations from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. Discussions included gender aspects related to service in armed forces. Adam Bodnar, the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights, addressing participants in an expert meeting on strengthening the independence of national human rights institutions in the OSCE region hosted by OSCE/ODIHR, 28 November 2016, Warsaw. (OSCE/Maria Kuchma) In co-operation with the European Union Advisory Mission Ukraine, ODIHR organized two training sessions, from 29 to 31 August and 10 to 12 October respectively, for Ukrainian