On 23 May 2008, the Special Rapporteur of the United
Nations Human Rights Council on Violence against Women, its Causes and
Consequences, Yakin Ertürk, delivered the following statement:
"From 15 to 23 May 2008, at the invitation of the
Government, I conducted an official visit to Tajikistan. During the course of
my visit, which included Dushanbe, Khujand, Kurgan-Tyube, Bobodjon
Gafurovskiy and Vakhdat districts, I met with representatives of various
ministries and Government institutions, members of the Parliament, the
Council of Ulema and individual imams, human rights and women's
organizations, crisis centres, women farmers, victims of violence, women at
the Nurek women's prison, representatives of the donor community and United
Nations agencies.
I will submit a full report with my findings and
recommendations to the Government and the United Nations Human Rights
Council. Today, I would like to share my preliminary observations with
respect to some priority areas relating to my specific mandate, where much
needs to be done by the Government, in cooperation with civil society and the
donor community. In doing so, I would like to acknowledge at the outset the
significant challenges that the Government of Tajikistan faces. Challenges
posed by the transition to a market economy, the devastating consequences of
the civil war and high levels of poverty constrain the country's
socio-economic development and its ability to protect and promote the rights
and well-being of its population.
I congratulate the Government on having ratified numerous
international instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women, all of which form an integral part of
the legal system of the Republic. Equality between men and women is guaranteed
under the Constitution of Tajikistan and the existing legislative framework.
There are also various programmes that promote the rights of women, such as
the "Basic Directions of State Policy to ensure equal rights and
opportunities for men and women in Tajikistan for the period 2001-2010",
the principles of which were codified into law in 2005.
While gender equality is ensured and promoted in law,
there are concerns that, in practice, the situation of women has regressed in
the past 15 years, and that many significant achievements in the areas of
women's employment, participation in public life and education, to name but a
few, have taken a step back. Today, women in Tajikistan are caught within a
web of poverty, patriarchy, and a weak protective infrastructure, resulting
in increased vulnerability to violence and discrimination inside and outside
their homes.
Poverty and unemployment, which remain the most serious
problems confronting Tajikistan, affect women disproportionately. Over the
past decade, as industries that traditionally employed a large proportion of
women declined and other sectors became reconfigured, women lost their jobs
and became dispossessed. Today, the vast majority of women are agricultural
workers with insecure access to land and inputs, or they try to earn a meagre
subsistence in the informal sector. Those working in the formal labour market
are mainly concentrated in the low-paid sectors, such as education, health
and culture. Various programmes undertaken by the Ministry of Labour and
Social Protection in recent years aiming to improve women's access to
vocational training, such as the newly created Adult Vocational Training
Centre, are promising initiatives.
Seasonal labour migration, mainly to the Russian
Federation, and the inflow of remittances have become a significant component
of the national and household economy of Tajikistan. Though female migration
is said to be on the increase, the vast majority of over one million migrants
are men. While migration of men has enabled their households to improve their
levels of subsistence, it has not been free of problems, particularly for the
wives and children left in the family home with the in-laws. It is not
uncommon for women living under such circumstances to encounter abuse and
violence by their in-laws, or even eviction from the family house,
particularly if the husband does not come back for long durations or does not
send remittances.
As a result of strong patriarchal values prevailing in
both the public and private spheres of life, women in general are expected to
be obedient to their husbands and his family and often get blamed for having
provoked disciplinary measures. Family preservation is a highly upheld value
that often has primacy over the interests of individual women. Unless serious
injuries occur, domestic violence is by and large accepted as a normal aspect
of private life by men and women alike and not acknowledged as a problem
warranting public intervention. As a result, women must endure systematic
abuse and humiliation in silence. In some cases a woman may resort to killing
her abuser and be condemned to many years of imprisonment, leaving her
children destitute. Suicides of women are said to be increasing, as the only
way out of an oppressive life.
Many of my interlocutors expressed concern about the
increasing trend in unregistered marriages as being a major source of
vulnerability for women to domestic abuse and abandonment. Not having an
official marriage certificate makes it more difficult for these women to seek
redress and take their claims related to housing or alimony to a court.
Practices pertaining to civil and residency ("propiska")
registrations have also been raised as aggravating factors. In a context where
most wives come to live at their husband's family home, upon divorce or
separation, they may have no entitlement to property, housing or financial
compensation should they hold a propiska in another locality. Women in
registered marriages are not immune to such problems.
Against this backdrop, access to information and the
existing infrastructure for the provision of services such as crisis centres
and shelters for victims of violence and those under threat are inadequate in
terms of availability, quantity, and human and financial capacity. While the
adoption of the draft Bill on Social and Legal Protection against Domestic
Violence - which I was assured will be before the Parliament in July - will
no doubt contribute towards improved prevention, protection and prosecution
of domestic abuses, particularly violence against women, other measures are
needed to urgently enhance women's access to justice and the effectiveness
and availability of services offered to victims, support the social and
economic empowerment of women and change gender stereotypes as well as
patriarchal mentalities that perpetuate the subordinate position of women in
the family and in society.
The Government's recent initiatives, as well as the
notable efforts of non-governmental organizations for the promotion and
protection of women's rights, are indisputable contributions towards the
creation of an enabling environment for combating violence against women. A
life free of violence is possible and it is an entitlement for all persons.
In this respect, I call on the Government and the donor community to
prioritize women's rights and increase support for initiatives aimed at
empowering women and ending all forms of violence against them."
Yakin Ertürk, Professor of Sociology at Middle East
Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, was appointed UN Special Rapporteur
on Violence against Women in 2003. Tajikistan is the sixteenth country she
has visited. For more information on the mandate, please visit the webpage: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/rapporteur/index.htm
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