The initiative to introduce the death penalty for crimes against sexual inviolability, according to the authors of the bill, comes from the citizens themselves. The bill is supported by 61 MPs.
Today in Kyrgyzstan there is an increase in cases of especially serious crimes against children, including sexual abuse, which are of extreme concern to both the state and the whole society.
According to the official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kyrgyzstan for eight months this year, the investigative units of the Internal Affairs Department of the republic registered:
– murder accompanied by rape against a minor at the age of 14 (1 fact);
– rape (35 facts), of which against children under the age of 14 (15 facts), from 14 to 18 years (20 facts);
– violent action of a sexual nature (25 facts), of which against children under the age of 14 (16 facts), from 14 to 18 years old (9 facts).
At the same time, there is an increase in rape of minors by 94.4% by 2020, by 66.7% – by 2021.
“The above statistics show that at present the issue of protecting children is an important issue of preserving the gene pool of the nation. Violence against young children tends to increase from year to year, and today most of these crimes in Kyrgyzstan remain latent,” the justification note to the bill says.
The parliamentarians, who developed this bill, are confident that official statistics don’t reflect the full picture of child rape due to the silence on cases of violence.
“Parents and children hide such crimes. Because of the fear of publicity, the relatives of the children (victims) try to hide the fact of such violence, thereby causing irreparable psychological damage to the child. The rapists, feeling their impunity, after a while continue to commit violent acts against other children,” the document says.
According to the authors of the normative acts, violent crimes (related to violence against children) have literally swept Kyrgyzstan over the past few years and forced the society to seriously think about returning to the death penalty as a criminal punishment for crimes against the sexual integrity of children.
At meetings of deputies with voters, citizens of Kyrgyzstan constantly raise questions about the need to strengthen responsibility for crimes related to violence against children. Citizens are asking MPs to return the death penalty for such a serious crime as child rape.
“Protection of the life and health of children at this stage is impossible without the threat of capital punishment and fair retribution,” the initiators of the bill emphasize.
In this regard, 61 deputies of Kyrgyzstan, which is 68% of the Parliament, spoke in favor of amending the Constitution of the republic. The project has been submitted for public discussion.
It states that, in accordance with the articles of the Children’s Code, “one of the directions of state policy in the field of ensuring the rights and interests of children is the full provision and protection of their rights and interests in accordance with the legislation of Kyrgyzstan, as well as the improvement of the regulatory legal framework in the field of ensuring the rights and interests of children.”
The state assumes the obligation to ensure maximum protection of the rights and freedoms of minors (it’s from the reference-justification to the draft amendments to the Constitution).
Meanwhile, as the authors note, there is an increase in the number of cases of especially serious crimes against children, including sexual violence.
For eight months of 2022, the investigative units of the republic’s Internal Affairs Department registered:
– murder associated with the violent satisfaction of sexual passion in other forms in relation to a minor at the age of 14 years (1 fact);
– rape (35 facts), of these, in relation to children under the age of 14 (15 facts), from 14 to 18 years (20 facts);
– violent acts of a sexual nature (25 facts), of these, in relation to children under the age of 14 (16 facts), from 14 to 18 years (9 facts).
“The above statistics show that the issue of protecting children is a matter of preserving the gene pool of the nation,” people’s deputies say.
Since crimes against the sexual inviolability of the child tend to increase, it is proposed to provide for the death penalty as an exceptional punishment in the Constitution.
The parliamentarians recalled that there are still states in the world where the death penalty is still applied (for example, Belarus, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, most US states) and where the main laws contain a norm allowing the death penalty, but in practice it doesn’t applies (for example, Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Algeria, Nigeria, Mali, Guyana). The death penalty for pedophilia exists in China and Iran.
