CAT/C/MRT/CO/1
(f)
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (3 April 2012);
(g)
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (3 April 2012);
(h)
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance (3 October 2012);
(i)
The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (3 October 2012).
5.
The Committee takes note with satisfaction of the State party’s efforts to revise its
legislation and, in particular, of its adoption of the following instruments:
(a)
persons;
Act No. 2003-025 of 17 July 2003 on the suppression of trafficking in
(b)
children;
Ordinance No. 2005-015 of 5 December 2005 on the judicial protection of
(c)
Ordinance No. 2007-36 of 17 April 2007, which sets out the Code of
Criminal Procedure;
(d)
Act No. 2007-048 of 3 September 2007, which classifies slavery as a
criminal offence and provides for the suppression of slavery-like practices;
(e)
The Migrant Smuggling Act of 22 January 2010;
(f)
The Ministerial Order issued by the Ministry of the Civil Service, Labour and
the Modernization of Public Administration in 2011 which sets out regulations governing
the employment of men and women as domestic servants and defines forms of employment
that violate labour laws (including the provisions of the conventions ratified by Mauritania,
as well as the Mauritanian Labour Code) as criminal offences.
6.
The Committee commends the State party on its cooperation with the Special
Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and its consequences,
and with the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance.
C.
Principal subjects of concern and recommendations
Definition and criminalization of torture
7.
The Committee remains concerned by the fact that, over eight years after becoming
a party to the Convention, the State party has still not incorporated a provision into its
criminal legislation that explicitly defines and penalizes torture as a specific criminal
offence and that acts of torture can be punished only as the offences of assault and battery
or homicide (arts. 1 and 4). Although the delegation of the State party stated orally that a
new law adopted in March 2013 would criminalize torture and slavery in its first article and
establish both offences as crimes against humanity, the Committee is concerned that a legal
void conducive to impunity might continue to exist if the above-mentioned law is not
promulgated (arts. 1, 4 and 14).
(a)
The Committee recommends that the State party amend its Criminal
Code to include a definition of torture that incorporates all the elements of torture
defined in article 1 of the Convention, together with provisions which classify acts of
torture as a criminal offence that is subject to penalties commensurate with the
gravity of such acts;
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