Committee on the Rights of the Child

List of issues in relation to the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Kazakhstan *

1.The State Party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information,of 10,700 words maximum, by 15 February 2026. The Committee may take up all aspects of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State Party.

Part I

2.With reference to the comprehensive legislative review undertaken since 2016, please:

(a)Specify the measures taken to ensure the direct application of the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto and the implementation of legislation on children’s rights;

(b)Provide an update on the progress made in adopting a strategy and action plan for children and designating the body responsible for the monitoring and implementation of the activities related to children’s rights;

(c)Provide updated information on the implementation of a children’s rights-based approach to budgeting and budgetary allocations for children, in particular children in remote areas or in vulnerable situations;

(d)Specify the efforts made to improve the collection, analysis and management of disaggregated data on children.

3.Please specify the measures taken to provide the Office of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights and its regional entities with a legislative basis and adequate human, financial and technical resources and premises to implement their mandates and raise awareness about their work, while ensuring their independence. Please specify the subject matter and outcome of complaints submitted to the Office since its establishment in 2016 and the reasons for the decrease in the number of complaints in 2020.Please indicate whether the Office is mandated to visit institutions responsible for protecting children’s rights and provide reports of those visits and their outcome.

4.Please provide information on:

(a)The impact of the training and awareness-raising initiatives on knowledge of the Convention among children, their parents and caregivers and relevant professionals, and whether the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto are part of the school curriculum;

(b)Progress made in establishing a regulatory framework for the business sector, as recommended by the Committee, in particular with regard to its social responsibility and to hold it accountable for children’s rights violations;

(c)How civil society is involved in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of laws, policies, plans and programmes relating to children’s rights without unnecessary restrictions;

(d)The restrictions on the right to freedom of conscience and religion imposed by the 2011 Act on Religious Activities and Associations and the restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, of association, of peaceful assembly and to information owing, inter alia, to the possibility of blocking or cutting off access to the Internet.

5.Please provide information on the measures taken:

(a)To adopt comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that complies with article 2 of the Convention, describing the mechanism used in dealing with anti‑discrimination complaints, specifying the number of such complaints submitted by or on behalf of children and their outcome;

(b)To address discrimination against children with disabilities, children from low-income families, children living in rural areas, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children, children in environmental disaster zones, children who are not citizens and other children in vulnerable situations, commenting on how plans to ban so-called “LGBT propaganda” comply with articles 13, 17 and 29 of the Convention;

(c)To integrate the principle of the best interests of the child into legislation and develop procedures for assessment and determination of best interests, including in relation to healthcare, housing, migration and placement in alternative care;

(d)To review legislation to ensure that children’s views are given due weight in all proceedings, in accordance with their age and maturity, specifying which issues have been identified as most important to children and the activities and impact of the debating movement, school/student parliaments and other forums,and indicating plans to engage children in the development and implementation of legislation, policies and programmes on issues that matter to them, including climate-related issues;

(e)To allow all children to have a proper access to justice and remedies, including under the newly ratified Optional Protocol on a communications procedure;

(f)To end childhood statelessness and ensure universal registration of birth and delivery of identity documents and access to nationality, particularly with regard to children born to unmarried and/or non-citizen parents, unattended births and children returning from conflict zones.

6.Please provide updated information on the measures taken:

(a)To investigate, prosecute and bring the perpetrators to justice in relation to the reports of: (i) the death, torture and ill-treatment of children in connection with the January 2022 events; (ii) the ill-treatment and torture of a group of children in police custody on 10 June 2024 in Uralsk; (iii) the death of children from Ayagoz special services centre reportedly admitted to hospital with measles in April 2020; and (iv) the ill-treatment of children by teachers in Pavlodar;

(b)To ensure child safety, including on the road, in school and at home, and prevent and promptly address accidents and injuries.

7.Please provide information on the progress made in:

(a)Establishing a legal and institutional framework, policy and strategy to prevent and address all forms of violence against children, including domestic and sexual violence and cyberbullying, investigating, prosecuting and bringing to justice the perpetrators of sexual offences against children, and ratifying the European conventions and rules on related topics;

(b)Explicitly prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings and promoting positive parenting techniques;

(c)Establishing independent and child-friendly channels with trained personnel, such as a 24-hour helpline, to enable all children to report violence confidentially, including those residing in closed institutions and institutions for children with disabilities;

(d)Strengthening services for children who were victims of violence, including undocumented children and children in rural areas, and building the capacity of professionals to avoid retraumatization, including statistics on the children who have accessed such services;

(e)Prohibiting and eliminating the marriage of girls and boys under the age of 18 without exception, including forced, kinship and polygamous marriages and bride kidnapping, and addressing social attitudes enabling these practices.

8.Please provide updated information on the policies and strategies of deinstitutionalization and the measures taken:

(a)To prevent family separation, including by developing a multisectoral community-based family support service, a dedicated social service workforce and a child-focused case management system, while strengthening support to foster families, including the new professional foster families, enhancing mechanisms coordinating child protection at all levels and providing support to children leaving care;

(b)To strengthen the monitoring of the quality of care and child participation in all care arrangements, including information on child-friendly channels for reporting abuse in alternative care with details on reported cases and their outcome;

(c)To establish safeguards to ensure that the child’s best interests and consent are taken into account in adoption procedures, particularly regarding the use of DNA tests to confirm family ties, including for children returning from conflict zones;

(d)To investigate the cases of the sale of children in connection with intercountry adoptions, as recommended by the Committee;

(e)To support children of incarcerated parents and encourage rehabilitative ties and family reintegration post release;

(f)To reintegrate children repatriated from camps in the north-east of the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq, providing information on the programmes applied and their results.

9.Please provide updated information on the steps taken:

(a)To align the definition of disability with international human rights standards and implement the human rights-based approach to disability;

(b)To ensure access to information, support systems and essential services tailored to the child’s needs, including early detection, intervention and rehabilitation, and quality inclusive education for children with disabilities in mainstream classrooms in schools and preschools, with adequately trained teachers;

(c)To extend disability assessment and benefits to all children, including refugee, asylum-seeking and separated children, and exclude disability benefits from the calculation of total family income;

(d)To support children with autism and their families.

10.Please provide updated information on the measures taken:

(a)To accelerate the reduction of under-5 mortality, with a particular focus on regional disparities and children in the most vulnerable situations, and ensure access to free prenatal care for asylum-seeking, refugee and stateless pregnant women;

(b)To address vaccine hesitancy and promote healthy lifestyles;

(c)To promote exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life;

(d)To ensure access to healthy and nutritious food during childhood and motherhood, with a view to reducing micronutrient deficiency, obesity, stunting and underweight and the sale of unhealthy food in schools;

(e)To ensure access to free medical services, including vaccinations, for all children, including refugee, asylum-seeking, stateless and unaccompanied and separated migrant children;

(f)To prevent suicide, address mental health issues among children and adolescents and ensure the availability of mental health services;

(g)To continue efforts to reduce adolescent pregnancies, expand access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education in schools and ensure access to confidential counselling on sexual and reproductive health, including in rural areas;

(h)To address gambling and the use of psychoactive substances by children and adolescents;

(i)To address the impact of environmental degradation, climate change, industrial pollution and waste disposal on children’s health, achieve the target agreed under the Paris Agreement and support children, including those displaced, who were victims of the 2024 floods.

11.Please provide information on the measures taken:

(a)To improve the quality of education and educational support, in the light of the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys early childhood development assessment, and to overcome urban-rural disparities in access to quality education, with particular attention paid to vulnerable groups;

(b)To provide early childhood education, especially in rural areas and among vulnerable groups;

(c)To address multidimensional poverty among children, in particular by adopting a child-sensitive approach to targeted social assistance, integrating income support with access to quality social services, with particular attention given to children living in rural areas and children with disabilities, and expanding criteria for accessing targeted social assistance;

(d)To ensure access to safe drinking water and sanitation and to menstrual hygiene management, including in schools and in rural areas.

12.Please specify:

(a)The measures taken to align the national legislation with the Convention on the Status of Refugees, as recommended by the Committee, including with regard to the non‑refoulement principle;

(b)Existing legal and administrative frameworks addressing the treatment of unaccompanied and separated migrant children and their identification, referral and access to refugee status determination procedures;

(c)Whether detention of refugee, asylum-seeking and unaccompanied and separated migrant children is legal and, if so, in which circumstances;

(d)The measures taken, including legislative amendments, to ensure access to education for all children temporarily residing in the State Party;

(e)The situation of children in street situations and plans to prevent and address this phenomenon and provide for the children’s support and reintegration;

(f)The efforts made to eliminate and strengthen the monitoring of child labour, including in cotton harvesting and among unaccompanied migrant children, and their outcome;

(g)The measures taken to align the definition of trafficking with international law, to improve the identification of child victims of trafficking, to prevent and eliminate trafficking, in children including begging, and to improve services for child victims, as well as access to justice and remedies.

13.Please provide updated information on:

(a)The progress in the implementation of the child justice system, in particular regarding: (i) any legislative amendments, the number of courts and judges and other specialized professionals for children and child-friendly rooms in courts; (ii) training for relevant professionals; (iii) the use of diversion and non-custodial measures; (iv) access to legal aid, psychologists and social workers in legal proceedings; and (v) the implementation of community-based support services and support for child victims and witnesses of crime;

(b)The progress made in transforming special schools for children with “deviant” behaviour and plans to reform the system of post-trial detention and to review legal provisions that allow the dissemination of information about children convicted of serious crimes;

(c)The legal framework and work of the national preventive mechanism with regard to the monitoring of places where children are deprived of liberty, the reports produced by this mechanism and the outcome of its recommendations.

14.Please provide updated information on the measures taken to implement the Committee’s previous recommendations under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornographyand the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict,specifying measures taken to ensure effective long-term reintegration of children repatriated from conflict zones.

Part II

15.The Committee invites the State Party to provide a brief update, of no more than three pages, on the information set out in its report with regard to the following:

(a)New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions and their mandates or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information

16.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and the social sectors, indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and the gross national product. Please also provide information on the geographical allocation of those resources.

17.Please provide, if available, updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on the following:

(a)Child deaths due to accident, abuse and suicide;

(b)Children living with HIV/AIDS;

(c)Child marriage and adolescent pregnancy and abortions;

(d)Children left behind by migrant parents working abroad;

(e)Stateless children;

(f)Asylum-seeking, refugee, unaccompanied and separated migrant children, including those in detention;

(g)Children belonging to minorities;

(h)Children working, including in the informal sector;

(i)Child victims of trafficking;

(j)Children in street situations;

(k)Children living in poverty.

18.Please provide data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, socioeconomic background, type of disability, ethnic origin and geographical location, on the number of children deprived of a family environment:

(a)Separated from their families, including the duration of their separation;

(b)Placed in institutions, including the number and type of institutions and data on the children placed in each institution, disaggregated by age and sex;

(c)Placed with foster families;

(d)Available for adoption;

(e)Adopted domestically;

(f)Adopted internationally.

19.Please provide data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin and geographical location, on the number of children with disabilities who are or have been:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)Living in institutions;

(c)Attending preschool;

(d)Attending regular primary schools;

(e)Attending regular secondary schools;

(f)Receiving individualized support, including home schooling;

(g)Attending special schools;

(h)Out of school;

(i)Abandoned by their families.

20.Please provide, if available, updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of offence, ethnic and national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on children alleged as, accused of or recognized as having infringed criminal law who have been:

(a)Arrested;

(b)Referred to diversion programmes;

(c)Placed in pretrial detention;

(d)Detained with adults;

(e)Convicted and serving a sentence in detention, indicating the length of the sentence in each case;

(f)In solitary confinement;

(g)Placed in special schools for children with “deviant” behaviour.

21.Please provide information on how a children’s rights-based approach is integrated into the planning, implementation and monitoring of measures for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including with regard to the participation of children and data collection, and on how those measures promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto.

22.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have become outdated by more recent data collected or other new developments.

23.In addition, the State Party may list areas affecting children that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Convention.