Renewed efforts to improve the country’s image saw the President prioritize a reform agenda. However, freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly remained tightly regulated. Human rights defenders continued to face targeted surveillance. Progress in the eradication of forced labour in the cotton sector was marred by harassment of independent monitors. A significant increase in domestic and gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic was exacerbated by the closure of virtually all crisis centres during lockdown. Consensual sexual relations between men remained a criminal offence. A draft bill was introduced on an independent torture complaints mechanism, although reports of torture and other ill-treatment, including deaths in custody, continued.
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