Voter Education Campaign in Tajikistan | OSCE

Before Tajikistan’s presidential elections in 2013, the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, in co-operation with the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda conducted a door-to-door, person-to-person voter education campaign throughout the country. The campaign targeted women and potential first-time voters. From 22 October until 4 November, 60 voter educators reached 115,037 voters explaining procedures for casting a ballot and that proxy voting is prohibited.

Voter Education Campaign in Tajikistan | OSCE.

Breaking the Vase: How women are becoming border guards in Central Asia and Afghanistan | OSCE

The ‘vase’ has been slowly shattering in many countries as law enforcement agencies, somewhat hesitatingly, have opened their doors to women. Border police services are arguably one of the last outposts reluctant to include women in their ranks. The reluctance has often been mutual, with few women relishing postings away from home and family, in isolated and hostile locations, working for long periods alongside large numbers of men.

The strategic shift from viewing border guards as responsible for defence of the state to protection of citizens – and thereby easing the ‘unhampered flow’ of goods, persons and services – has demanded not only reform and expansion but inclusivity. Representative law enforcement institutions have become an operational necessity.

The 21st century has witnessed a massive increase in mobility and the numbers of labour migrants, with more women crossing borders primarily for trade and employment but also for education, marriage and adventure. The vast majority, looking for employment opportunities and the doorway to a better life for their families, are among the poorest, the least educated and skilled women, with limited employment options.

In May 2014, the OSCE Border Management Staff College introduced its first all-women staff course. The course content included the standard topics ranging from management models to information-sharing, migration, human trafficking and smuggling, counter-terrorism, anti-corruption measures, conflict management and leadership. There was also a two-day Train the Trainers session and a requirement for group research and presentation on selected topics.

Participants included twenty-five mid and senior-level female officers of the border, customs and drug control agencies of Afghanistan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Romania and Tajikistan.

Breaking the Vase: How women are becoming border guards in Central Asia and Afghanistan | OSCE.

Central Asian Migrants in Russia Are Humiliating Their ‘Dishonorable’ Countrywomen on Video · Global Voices


A number of videos of Central Asian women accused of prostitution and generally “shaming their nation and religion” have been uploaded onto file-sharing platforms by anonymous users in recent times. The videos, deleted by social media moderators, reappear again after being uploaded by different users.

While the world speaks out about the enslavement of women by ISIS, netizens in Central Asia are vigorously discussing videos portraying the relentless persecution and physical punishment of Central Asian women suspected of prostitution.

Videos of Kyrgyz and Tajik female migrants facing public humiliation in Russia are nothing new, but a copycat tendency means the phenomenon has now affected the migrant communities of other states in the region. In November a video appeared on YouTube showing two young women in Uzbekistan sitting with their hands tied behind their backs. The man in the video beats them with a stick while calling them sluts.

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A. added: “You tell them that they are bringing shame to the name of Tajiks? She regrets what she did. But you bring shame on Tajiks by making this video and showing it to everyone.”  

Central Asian Migrants in Russia Are Humiliating Their ‘Dishonorable’ Countrywomen on Video · Global Voices.

 

Tajik Parliament Approves Law Against Domestic Violence

DUSHANBE — Tajikistan’s parliament has passed the country’s first law specifically targeting domestic violence.

Lawmakers on December 19 approved the law, which aims to give greater protections to women’s rights.

It sets up administrative measures to deal with domestic violence, including up to 15 days’ imprisonment and fines for offenders.

The law includes a statement that the elderly should play an active role in preventing domestic violence among young families.

The advice of elders carries significant weight in traditional Tajik society.

According to official statistics, more than 200 women took their own lives in 2010 and a majority of the cases were related to domestic violence.

via Tajik Parliament Approves Law Against Domestic Violence.

Tajikistan: Female Boxer Fights Odds, Wins Olympic Bronze · Global Voices

Mavzuna Chorieva, a 19-year-old athlete from Tajikistan, won a bronze medal in the women’s lightweight boxing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

The fighter who was Tajikistan’s flag-bearer at the opening ceremony eliminated the highly ranked Chinese boxer Cheng Dong in a quarterfinal match on August 6, before losing her semi-final against veteran Irish fighter Katie Taylor two days later. The 26-year-old Irish who had previously won four world championships and five European titles consequently took gold.

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via Tajikistan: Female Boxer Fights Odds, Wins Olympic Bronze · Global Voices.

Better services opening new doors for women in Tajikistan | UN Women

Makhfirat Dadaboeva, a young mother, cradles the youngest of her three children as she waits in front of the Municipal office in Hissar District in central Tajikistan. Forced to drop out of university when her first child was born a few years back, she is now determined to change her future by finishing her education and getting a job. Bolstering her confidence is the local District Task Force, a legal aid centre supported by UN Women, which provides much needed services to underserved community members, many of them women.

via Better services opening new doors for women in Tajikistan | UN Women.

TAJIKISTAN: Divorce Spurs Female Labour Migration – IPS ipsnews.net

Tajikistan’s dependence on remittances from labour migrants abroad is well-documented. Last year, Tajiks working in Russia sent home 2.96 billion dollars, the equivalent of 45 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the National Bank. That makes Tajikistan the world’s most remittance-dependent country.

The International Monetary Fund is projecting a 13-percent increase in remittance flows into Tajikistan this year. Over one million Tajiks, or roughly one out of every eight Tajik citizens, are estimated to work abroad as migrant labourers.

The share of Central Asian women going abroad to work is quickly growing. An analyst at the State Migration Service in Dushanbe estimates around 15 percent of Tajik labour migrants are now women. In 2003, his office said females comprised six percent of the migrant workforce.

“A mixture of poverty and increasing divorce rates in Tajikistan, which leave many women destitute, have contributed to this rise,” Natalia Bogdanova, Moscow-based rights activist and head of Migrant’s Rights, a non-governmental organisation, told EurasiaNet.org.

Like the men, many female Tajiks work abroad illegally. In December, Konstantin Romodanovsky, director of Russia’s Federal Migration Service, estimated that only 14 percent of the roughly 9.1 million foreign nationals working in the country had work permits, Russian media reported.

Without proper legal protections, Tajik migrants in Russia face threats arising from xenophobia, dangerous working conditions and hostile police. In 2011, Tajikistan received at least 818 boxes of “Cargo 200” – Soviet-era slang for coffins – from Russia, the Interior Ministry said in late December. Eighty-nine of the deaths were attributed to hate crimes.

Women face additional risks. “Most of the women work in domestic jobs, as cooks and cleaners. Many of them work here illegally,” Bogdanova said. “Many of them have very basic knowledge of Russian, leaving them open to exploitation, unsafe working conditions and blackmail.”

“We see cases in which women are promised jobs here and then forced to work for free, sometimes as prostitutes. …Crimes go unreported,” Bogdanova added, “because most women are not officially registered.”

via TAJIKISTAN: Divorce Spurs Female Labour Migration – IPS ipsnews.net.

TAJIKISTAN: Divorce Spurs Female Labour Migration – IPS ipsnews.net

DUSHANBE, May 23, 2012 (IPS/EurasiaNet) – Four years ago, Farida Hajimova’s husband left Tajikistan to work in Russia. After a time, he stopped calling. Ultimately, he never returned. She was left at home in Dushanbe with two daughters and not a lot of options.

Now she says she has no choice but to follow in her ex-husband’s footsteps – not to find him, but to find work herself.

Hajimova is one of an increasing number of Tajik women journeying abroad, mostly to Russia, as labour migrants. Until relatively recently, the overwhelming majority of migrant workers leaving Tajikistan were men.

But desperation and poverty are forcing tens of thousands of women to hit the road. Experts voice concern that many female migrants are at risk of being abused and trafficked for sex.

“I have only been able to find part-time work here in Dushanbe,” said 28-year-old Hajimova, who plans to follow two friends who work as cleaning ladies in Moscow. “My oldest daughter will go to school in September and I need to be able to afford to buy her the necessary supplies. The children will stay with their aunt and I will go to Moscow.”

Tajikistan’s dependence on remittances from labour migrants abroad is well-documented. Last year, Tajiks working in Russia sent home 2.96 billion dollars, the equivalent of 45 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the National Bank. That makes Tajikistan the world’s most remittance-dependent country.

(Read More) via TAJIKISTAN: Divorce Spurs Female Labour Migration – IPS ipsnews.net.