40  //  HUMAN RIGHTS Twenty-seven representatives of national human rights institutions participated in the 2017 NHRI Academy, organized by the ODIHR and European Network of NHRIs in Poznan, Poland, from 29 May to 2 June 2017. (Grzegorz Czajka) “U pholding the highest standards with regard to the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is crucial to ensuring comprehensive security in our region.” — Liselotte Plesner, Denmark’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE and in November ODIHR conducted its first such course on human rights compliant policing of assemblies, in Kyiv, for 15 participants (15 men). ODIHR and the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan collaborated on a joint project to improve the effectiveness of efforts to counter human trafficking and to develop a comprehensive victim-support system in Uzbekistan. As part of this project, a seminar was conducted in Tashkent that focused on how to combat human trafficking in countries of origin, transit and destination. The workshop brought together some 50 participants (30 men, 20 women), including representatives of the anti-trafficking special units of the police, investigators, prosecutors, Interpol and civil society organizations from Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan, as well as India and Thailand. In light of the difficult situation faced by human rights defenders throughout the OSCE region, ODIHR launched new capacity-building initiatives for them. Among other initiatives, ODIHR piloted its first human rights advocacy training for human rights defenders, from 24 to 27 April in ­Odesa, Ukraine. Twenty-six Ukrainian human rights defenders (10 men, 16 women) worked on creating advocacy strategies on specific