By 1997, that figure had dropped to 37 percent. And the business sphere is the same: its a mans world which lives by its own laws. The issue of violence against women and girls, and of domestic violence in particular, has been for many years a very low priority in Uzbekistan, still often considered culturally as a personal affair and not as a crime. You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Fortunately, however, President Mirziyoyev has expressed his desire to transform womens rights in Uzbekistan. UNODC remains committed to assist Uzbekistan to address transnational organized crime, trafficking in persons and all other forms of crime and violence. Hopefully, with a new female government official and progressive laws, womens rights in Uzbekistan will continue to improve. The social and legal situation of women in Uzbekistan has been influenced by local traditions, religion, the earlier Soviet regime and changing social norms since independence. By the 1980s, the Soviet modernization drive in the region had produced paradoxical results. A former Soviet Union territory, Uzbekistan has a population of 30 million. However, the underrepresentation of women is endemic at all levels of government. Help us defend it through trustworthy, independent journalism. See also Lynne Attwood, "The post-Soviet woman in the move to the market: a return to domesticity and dependence?" Most Uzbek families believe that the role of a woman is to marry and run the household. It turns out that if you dont have relatives to take care of the child, a woman has to live without state support or work for a whole year., "Local doctors refuse to accept complaints about beatings, saying that they have had enough of resolving family feuds. 7 Dilorom A. Alimova, Zhenskii vopros v srednei azii (Tashkent, 1991). 4, May 1998; Mehrdad Haghayegi, Islam & Politics in Central Asia, New York, 1996. People in the regions who need to react quickly to new policies still share the old stereotypes about women. 28 Shireen Akiner, "Between tradition and modernity," pp. This automatically makes the woman subordinate. We need to change societys perception of how things have to be. This witness matriculated at a newly-formed Islamic school for girls after having been expelled from a secular university. The first is to ensure equal opportunities and freedoms for men and women and the second is to safeguard women from domestic violence and assault. 2 Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley, 1998), pp. 19 Overwhelmingly, contemporary Uzbek women who choose to wear the hijab, or covering prescribed by some interpretations of Islam, have adopted dress similar to that worn by conservative Muslim women in Turkey and other parts of the non-Arab Muslim world: a long loose coat-like robe together with a headscarf covering the forehead and neck, and sometimes the entire face save for the eyes. Politicians and public figures began to call for a return to "traditional" roles for women, a stance that women's activists decried as decidedly "anti-woman," believing that it was designed to drive women out of the labor force and higher education and back into the home.14. ), Women in Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 16 Elizabeth Constantine, anthropologist, paper presented to a World Bank seminar, May 2000. ACTEDs action, funded by the EU through its Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, is the result of joint planning between Mehr Kozda, a local CSO specialised in the provision of community-based social support for women in difficulties in Tashkent rural areas; the Oydin Nur Centre for Social Protection of the Family in Bukhara and the Rakjimdillik Shelter of Samarkand providing psychological and legal support to local women victims of domestic violence; and ACTED, present in Uzbekistan since 1996. 7, March 2001, http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/digest7e.pdf, June 20, 2001. In the new cycle of the UNODC Programme for Central Asia 2022-2025, gender mainstreaming and women empowerment in the fight against drugs, corruption and terrorism ares a core priority. [4][5], However, trafficking still persists, as Uzbekistan is both a supplier and consumer of trafficked women. 17 Republic of Uzbekistan. 62.3% of women were using free contraceptives in 2003. The most difficult thing was to build up a loyal following that grasped the importance of the issue and didnt try to devalue victims experience. Liana Natroshvili thinks that societys role is one of the most important when it comes to understanding a womans place in Uzbekistan. Taking advantage of the new openness, initiated by First Secretary Gorbachev, Uzbek social critics of all stripes denounced women's so-called "double burden," created by women's integration into the labor force and expectations that women would continue to cover all of the domestic labor in the home.13 Moscow's attempts to rein in the high population growth rates in the region also prompted heated criticism. Uzbekistan's government has exploited the rhetoric of women's rights as proof of the nation's modernity in the process of forging a new national identity. In C. R. Ember, & M. Ember (Eds. For all inquiries, contact Vasilina Brazhko (Ms.), Copyright2022UNODC, All Rights Reserved, Legal Notice, United Nations Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking, Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols (CTOP/COP), Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), IMOLIN - the international money laundering information network, International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (26 June), International Anti-Corruption Day (9 December), International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), United Nations drug, crime and terrorism treaties, Regional Programme for Afghanistan and Neighbouring Countries, Countering transnational organized crime, illicit drug trafficking and preventing terrorism, Criminal justice, crime prevention and integrity, Drug prevention, treatment and reintegration, and HIV prevention, Convention on Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW). All rights reserved. Uzbekistan still lacks a law on domestic violence, and legislation on gender equality is yet to appear. And we need to think about the person inflicting the violence, not the behaviour of their victim.. What can you do? Uzbekistan was and remains one of the few countries in the world that lacks legislation on domestic violence. The Soviets, after colonizing the region in the latter half of the 19th century, promised to emancipate women from the patriarchal customs of society, viewing these customs as oppressive to women. These points are unlikely to come up in reports by the World Bank, the World Economic Forum or the UN. With limited opportunity to decide their own futures, women in Uzbekistan have not truly attained their human rights. Since independence from the Soviet Union, the push to reaffirm traditional values has meant that women have a subservient role within the household, and to a further extent, within society. Violence against women has reportedly increased in recent years. In this respect, the reports authors compare Uzbekistan with Russia and Myanmar. We need to change societys perception of how things have to be". I think we need another model of relationships one of partnership and equality, where no one is more important by virtue of their gender.. 11 Dr. Nodira Azimova, Dr. Dilarom Alimova, "Women's Position in Uzbekistan Before and After Independence," in Feride Acar and Ayse Gunes-Ayata, eds., Gender and Identity Construction: Women of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey (Leiden, 2000), pp. A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. The Womens Committee, set up in 1991, aims to improve womens status in society, and this draft legislation is the first ever document of its kind published in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has undertaken significant reform efforts in key policy areas within UNODCs mandates. Currently people look to traditions and persistent stereotypes which have been passed down from generation to generation. One important project is the Speak Out! online discussion group. Rural women are particularly at risk of violence against women and girls due to their disadvantaged status. Cases such as these happen in Uzbekistan more often than one can imagine. Post-Soviet women: from the Baltic to Central Asia (Cambridge, 1997), p. 276. Covid-19: What are we doing? Currently people look to traditions and persistent stereotypes which have been passed down from generation to generation. 1 (2), 1999, pp. Uzbek women Under Soviet rule The push for womens rights in Uzbekistan is made more difficult by the countrys history as a Soviet Union colony and the subsequent counterreaction to reestablish traditional cultural values. While the government tries to figure out the women issue, ordinary Uzbeks are gradually shifting their position on gender equality at least in the capital and other large cities. Staff at the Oila centre travelled across the country, talking to women about violence and their own family situations. Uzbekistan, which became independent in 1991, is a young state with claims to an ancient past. 18 Haghayegi, Islam & Politics; Bakhtiiar Babajanov, "Vozrozhdenie deiatel'nosti sufiiskikh grupp v Uzbekistane," Tsentral'naia Aziia i Kavkaz no. 33 Interview with Rector Damin Abdurakhimovich Asadov of Tashkent's Pediatric Medical Institute, Tashkent, June 3, 1998; see Class Dismissed..p. 16. Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. In April this year, Uzbekistans Womens Committee published a draft law designed to prevent sex discrimination. The fight for womens rights in Uzbekistan is becoming more of a priority. [8][9][10] A BBC World Service "Assignment" report on 12 April 2012 uncovered evidence that women are being sterilised, often without their knowledge, in an effort by the government to control the population. 15 Mary Buckley, "Victims and agents: gender in post-Soviet states," in Mary Buckley, ed. Last years report predicted that it would take at least another century to wipe out the economic, social and political inequality between men and women and that only if the trend towards equality continues. Indeed, some observers tie the trend toward religious marriage ceremonies to families' efforts to circumvent the minimum age of marriage laws. "25, In addition, the Uzbek government has issued proclamations and implemented some minimal policies designed to protect women's rights. [4], As of 2004 Uzbekistans election law requires political parties to nominate at least 30 percent female candidates for the parliament. However, the reliance on religious marriage ceremonies, anecdotal evidence shows, indicates that many marriages are contracted in fact before being registered with state agencies. This position is further complicated by the government's contradictory stance toward Islam, which it also promotes as a facet of national culture and identity, but suppresses when it challenges state authority.17 Statements by government officials portray Islam on the whole as an encroaching threat to women's exercise of their rights, ignoring facets of the region's own Islamic heritage, such as the jadid movement, supportive of female emancipation. The desire to reanimate and reinvent national tradition, and thus to solidify the newly independent state's claims to nationhood, has complicated women's exercise of their human rights in the post-Soviet era. Uzbek law is by and large on the side of women, but local officials or the public mood are not. 29 Family code, part II, article 15. [18] "Unskilled personnel in the non-production sector are comprised virtually entirely of women.[4][5] Women also cannot be used for night time or overtime work. [20] Bride kidnappings are believed to be tied to economic instability. 4 Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia: 1919-1929 (Princeton, 1974). The state claimed to have achieved near-universal literacy among men and women decades earlier. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, assertions of Uzbek "national tradition" came into immediate conflict with those elements of the Soviet legacy that promoted women's equality. Meanwhile, the Womens Committee is proposing that the Uzbek public examine its draft legislation and comment on it. Exceptions are provided for "with valid cause," in which "in exceptional cases, the hokim of the district or city in which the marriage is to be registered may, at the request of the parties to be married, lower the minimum age of marriage, though not by more than one year." She has been repeatedly fined and beaten by police for her persistence in covering her face in public. In this context, although there is no official sex-disaggregated statistics on gender-based violence, incidences of violence against women within families are reported to be rather on the rise. The Strategy for Achieving Gender Equality in Uzbekistan until 2030 was adopted, emphasized Ms. Narbaeva, Chairperson of the Senate of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The historical Central Asian variant, the paranja and chachvan, or total-body robe draped over the head and a netting covering the face, resembling the Afghan burqa, remains a rarity. The statistics on Uzbekistan do not make for happy reading, with most of its figures at the low end of the scale - on the protection from domestic violence line the country has zero points. Discussion of the projects proposals ended a month later, but theres been no further progress the draft bill remains in a state of limbo. One analyst notes that younger women command a much higher bride price than women over the age of twenty, even those with a university degree. The importance in promoting the implementation of the requirements of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the SDGs, as well as legislative and policy measures on gender equality and empowerment and opportunities for women and girls were outlined by the panel discussion participants. 6 Douglas Taylor Northrop, "Uzbek Women and the Veil: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia," Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, March 1999. Also, the nation has set up almost 200 shelters across the country to provide for women escaping violence. Early marriage tends to limit women's access to education and employment outside the home.30 The new bride, or kelin, occupies the lowest status rung in her new family, particularly until she produces a first child. We need to change things in all social groups: a familys attitudes towards a daughter, for example. 22 Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, May 26, 2000. This decree also created the Oila (Family) research centre, which aims to strengthen marriages, study issues of reproductive health, investigate problems faced by modern families and compile lists of low income households. At the same time the Soviet government recommenced its brutal campaign to suppress Islam, viewed by Moscow as one of the major obstacles to the transformation of women's social roles and as a threat to Soviet political primacy in the region. [21] Some scholars report that less desirable males with inferior educations or drug or alcohol problems are more likely to kidnap their brides. Economic motives, beyond simple cost, may also play a role in discouraging women's higher education. Though some women seized the opportunity to be integrated into public life, others resumed wearing their veils almost as quickly as they cast them off. Data collected to this end is strictly anonymous. [12] In 2001 it was estimated that approximately 500 women a year kill themselves because of abusive situations. During the course of this revival, some Uzbek citizens, mistrustful of state-controlled Islam, and newly aware of the variations in Islam internationally, have sought out alternative forms of belief and practice, some more observant than the government-approved norm.18 Though very few in number, some women, particularly the young, have begun to veil.19, Having crushed all secular opposition to the authoritarian rule of President Karimov by the mid-1990s, the state's attitude toward uncontrolled expressions of religious belief, as a potential vehicle to carry critical social messages and civil discontent, grew more hostile. 99-110. Some rights reserved, Occasional updates from our team covering the post-Soviet space, We encourage anyone to comment, please consult, Preventing Domestic Violence draft legislation, Ukraine uses Russian invasion to pass laws wrecking workers rights, Fears for Ukrainian human rights activist captured by Russia, Ukrainian prisoners of war reveal torture and humiliation in Russian jails, Unions sound warning about UK-backed plan to rebuild Ukraine, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Surveys in the early 1980s reported that Uzbek families aimed, on average, to have 5.58 children, far outpacing ethnic Russian expectations of 2.02 children per family. The activity, implemented in 10 target districts, through a series of 100 appraisal meetings with Mahallas (urban division in Uzbek communities) Committees and with local women, including women survivors and vulnerable women at risk of violence, to discuss gender equality issues will end early August 2018. Due to a rebound of traditional patriarchal values since the Independence, families are increasingly imposing restrictions on womens activities outside of home and promoting early marriage. They fought against the conservative elements in society that, in reaction to the Imperial Russian conquest of the region in the 1860s-70s, had tended to reinforce traditional forms of female seclusion and veiling.2 Jadid efforts to promote women's education and freedom created a constituency for the more radical measures put in place following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.3, Seeking to transform what they viewed as the feudal social order in Central Asia into a socialist one, the Bolsheviks sought allies among the region's women, who they assumed would flock to support the new regime that promised women's emancipation.4 In 1927, the Soviet government launched what it termed the hujum, or offensive, against all traditional, patriarchal social practices deemed oppressive to women, including the marriage of underage girls, brideprice, and the most visible symbol of this oppression, the veil. Last year, the committee also opened the first shelters for women who are victims of domestic violence. 255-266. This all needs to be discussed and explained in schools and nurseries, workplaces, universities and colleges and elsewhere.. Relying on ACTEDs methodology to interact with populations at the grass-root level, end of June the three partners started to carry out the appraisal, in coordination with the National Women Committee, a women-oriented body, present in the 14 regions of the country and in 219 municipalities and districts and enjoying significant proximity with the Executive. This channel, which was set up a year and a half ago on Facebook and Telegram, helps women who have experienced violence. Local doctors refuse to accept complaints about beatings, saying that they have had enough of resolving family feuds. 30 For a discussion of the human rights aspects of early marriage, see Early Marriage, Child Spouses, Innocenti Digest No. Women are increasingly concentrated in low-wage sectors of the workforce, and receive lower wages than men for the same work.35. Article 18 of the 1992 constitution, currently in force, provides all citizens with equal rights without respect to gender, and article 46 repeats that women and men shall have equal rights. In the frame of this action, a pilot assessment is currently being conducted across the different rural communities of the country, with the aim of identifying women vulnerable to domestic violence and depicting the context and behavioral patterns related to domestic violence in the targeted areas. Women's Status in the Family and Society UNODC is guided by the Convention on Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and Action Platform, various resolutions and decisions of the United Nations General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and the Commission on the Status of Women to promote and implement gender equality in all areas of its work. In 2018, the Womens Committee opened a hotline for women who had experienced violence you now can dial the number 1146 to contact a doctor, psychologist or lawyer. It also explains terms such as sexism, debasement and feminism to other users. 24 Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, adopted December 8, 1992, part II, chapter 5, article 18; ibid., chapter 10, article 46. 3 Marianne Ruth Kamp, "Unveiling Uzbek Women: Liberation, Representation and Discourse, 1906-1929," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, June 1998. Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website. Outside of their homes, women face restrictions on how to live their lives, with limits on educational and work opportunities in favor of marriages and children. According to Yagafarova, the situation is similar in the judicial system the police confirm that fines for domestic violence are paid out of family budgets, although legislation provides for alternative punishments, from community service to imprisonment or house arrest. Unfortunately, there is very little funding for the subsistence of these shelters. Our country joined all main international conventions, ensuring legal, social and economic protection of women from any form of discrimination. A 1995 presidential decree, on "Measures to Increase the Role of Women in State and Society," gave representatives of the national Women's Committee, heirs of the Soviet Women's Committee, official government posts.26 According to the decree, the chairwoman of the national Women's Committee serves as deputy prime minister, and regional representatives of the committee at the provincial, district, and municipal level function as deputies to the appointed governors of these territories, the khokim.27 As deputy governors and mayors, Women's Committee leaders carry responsibility for administering social welfare payments to women and families, and for other policies directly related to women. Post-Soviet Women: From the Baltic to Central Asia, p. 7.