Central Asian youth turn ideas into action to prevent crime at OSCE forum

How can youth help prevent criminal recruitment, challenge the promise of quick money and build safer communities? From 5 to 9 October 2026, the OSCE Secretariat’s Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities and the Transnational Threats Department organized the Central Asia Youth Dialogue Forum in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, bringing together young people from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to tackle these questions and design practical prevention initiatives.

The Forum provided a regional platform for youth to examine the factors that can increase vulnerability to criminal recruitment and involvement. Through interactive expert-led sessions, practical exercises and peer-to-peer exchanges, participants explored approaches to early prevention and intervention, recruitment into organized crime and drug trafficking, and financial crime, including money-mule schemes and online scams.

A central component of the Forum was the development of practical, youth-led prevention initiatives tailored to the Central Asian context. Proposed initiatives included AI-supported bots to help young people detect money-mule recruitment scams in local languages; gamified digital tools to strengthen connections between young people and parents living abroad with the aim of reducing susceptibility to grooming by drug trafficking groups; and economic empowerment and mentorship programmes for orphans.

The Forum culminated in project pitches to representatives of OSCE participating States and international organizations, demonstrating how young people can translate their understanding of challenges affecting their peers into innovative, locally grounded prevention solutions.

“Young people should not be seen only as those at risk of crime. We can also be part of the solution. As an educator, I see how crucial early intervention, child protection and legal awareness are for our youth, and how education can act as our strongest first line of defense. The Forum showed how we can turn our ideas into practical initiatives and work together across Central Asia to build safer communities,” said Madina Abdusheva, participant from Kazakhstan.

The Forum also promoted regional co-operation and a culture of lawfulness, enabling participants to exchange perspectives across borders and explore their role as active partners in crime prevention.

The Forum was organized as part of the OSCE extrabudgetary project “Enhancing youth crime and drug use prevention through education on legality and awareness campaigns addressing threats of organized crime and corruption”, funded by Germany, with additional support from Andorra, Finland, Italy, Norway, Poland and Thailand.