Kyrgyzstan will reinstate the death penalty for serious crimes against children and women.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has ordered the death penalty for pedophiles, as well as for the rape of women followed by murder. This was announced by the head of state's press secretary, Askat Alagozov.

"The President instructed Murat Ukushev, Head of the Presidential Administration's Legal Support Department, to draft legislative amendments providing for the most severe penalties for crimes against children, girls, and women. Specifically, this concerns the introduction of the death penalty for the rape of children, as well as for the rape and murder of women," Askat Alagozov wrote on Facebook.

According to him, this was Japarov's response to the news of the murder of a 17-year-old Karakol resident who was raped and strangled in late September. The suspect, a man born in 1984, was detained in Bishkek and previously convicted of sexual assault but escaped punishment.

Japarov stated that crimes against children and women should not go unpunished, Alagozov added. The president took the case of the girl's murder under his personal supervision.

A day earlier, on September 30, a call to introduce the death penalty "as an exceptional measure of punishment for particularly serious crimes against the life and sexual integrity of minors" was posted in the "Citizens' Proposals" section of Kyrgyzstan's public discussion portal for draft regulatory acts. However, according to the author of the proposal, capital punishment should not be applied to women and minors.

Kyrgyzstan abolished the death penalty in 1998, when a moratorium on executions was declared, but courts continued to hand down death sentences for a long time. The death penalty was effectively abolished in 2007, when it was replaced by life imprisonment. Prior to this, in 2006, the mention of capital punishment was removed from the Kyrgyz Constitution, and in 2010, the country ratified an international protocol banning the death penalty and committing to its abrogation. Reinstating it would require amendments to the country's Basic Law and a referendum.