), Encyclopedia of sex and gender: men and women in the world's cultures. Covid-19: What are we doing?

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. This series of appraisals will allow us to showcase and inform the realities women survivors or at risk of violence are facing, in a country where people sorely lack understanding on issues related to domestic violence due to persistent stereotypes, Stay in touch with ACTED teams in the field. It also describes future mechanisms to protect these rights and establishes penalties for violating them. UNODC advocates for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls and is committed to ensuring that a gender perspective is actively and visibly mainstreamed in all its practices, policies, and programmes. We need to change societys perception of how things have to be". Uzbekistan was nonetheless included in a recent World Bank report (Women, Business and the Law 2018), which analyses attitudes towards women across the world. Womens rights and needs must be taken into account, every step of the way, as women and men are impacted differently by drugs, crime, corruption, and terrorism, said Ms. Ghada Waly while addressing to the roundtable participants. 23 Kyrgyz Radio first program, as cited in BBC Monitoring, August 20, 2000. In recent years, there have been governmental and societal changes along with a new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Domestic Violence, still largely a family matter in Uzbekistan, Increasing NGOs capacity to provide services to vulnerable women in Uzbekistan, ACTED brings together Uzbek NGOs and International Donor and Developing Agencies to enhance ties between them, ACTED promotes best practices in CSO management in Uzbekistan, Education for Health: promoting hygiene and access to water, Grassroots community centers in rural Uzbekistan bring hope to survivors of domestic violence, Bringing together Uzbek NGOs, international donors and development agencies to strengthen cooperation, Supporting civil society by promoting womens rights, Shining a light on gender-based violence in Uzbekistan, The European Union supports ACTED in advancing womens rights through enhanced protection and self-employment, PRESS RELEASE: ACTED launches 2 EU-funded projects boosting renewable energy and investments in small rural tourism enterprises, How a shelter in Uzbekistan is supporting women in need: Nadiras story. 6 Douglas Taylor Northrop, "Uzbek Women and the Veil: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia," Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, March 1999. 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. The police wont throw abusers in jail and medical examiners re-traumatise women who come to them". There are several key facts to know about womens rights in Uzbekistan. Help us defend it through trustworthy, independent journalism. As far as gender equality goes, there are still far too few women engaged in the countrys political life.

On the other, the centre has to do everything it can to keep a family together. 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. 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. This carried certain risks for the state, both because of the continuing political control of Soviet-era leaders, and also because the Soviet order had effectively laid the groundwork for Uzbekistan's claims on modern nationhood. As proof of this statement, Yagafarova tells me that its still not easy for women to work and be mothers companies in Uzbekistan have to pay maternity benefits, but believe mothers should pay these costs themselves, and are therefore unwilling to take women on. 35 Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Initial reports of States Parties, Uzbekistan, CEDAW/C/UZB/1, February 2, 2000, pp. [16][5]Trafficking occurs as an extension of the shuttle trade. Discussion lasted for a week, but there is no certainty that it will be passed in the future. Most Uzbek families believe that the role of a woman is to marry and run the household. (2003). People in the regions who need to react quickly to new policies still share the old stereotypes about women. 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.

[4][5] However, the UN estimates that about 13.7% of women in Uzbekistan who would like to prevent, or delay, their next pregnancy are unable to do so because of limited access to contraceptives. Since the beginning of 2018, ACTED Uzbekistan is implementing an EU-funded project to enhance womens rights through increased protection and self-employment. 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. Theres no point in explaining to people what gender equality is if you start with the premise that the man is the head of the family. During the period of Soviet rule, the state promoted a laudatory history of its own role in freeing women from what it viewed as the oppressive strictures of Islamic religious law and local custom. Furthermore, women experience restrictions in a range of spheres.

12, October 1999. [14] For example, telephone hotlines are available for trafficking victims,[15] and trafficking carries a jail sentence of five to eight years.

2 Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley, 1998), pp. Among the different activities of the projects, ACTED, with its three partners, is currently conducting a pilot appraisal at the communal level, in order to bypass the context of domestic violence in Uzbekistan, which obstructs the identification of potential beneficiaries of shelter services and limits the availability of information and data on domestic violence. The centre was also given responsibility for strengthening families and for divorces. 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. In 2018, all Central Asian states, apart from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, were included in the index, with Kazakhstan in 52nd place, Kyrgyzstan in 81st and Tajikistan in 93rd (out of 200). Theres no point in explaining to people what gender equality is if you start with the premise that the man is the head of the family". What is often excluded from this narrative, however, is the contribution of the movement for Islamic modernization known as the jadids, led by prominent members of indigenous society, which predated Soviet efforts to transform local society and the status of women by almost a half century. [21] Some scholars report that less desirable males with inferior educations or drug or alcohol problems are more likely to kidnap their brides. In Uzbekistan, women facing domestic violence have few mechanisms to defend their rights, CC BY-NC 2 Vladimir Varfolomeev /Flickr. CEDAW: Concluding Observations, 2006, Uzbekistan, "Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15-64) (modeled ILO estimate) - Data", "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women", "The United Nations Human Rights Treaties", "Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights", "BBC News - Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women", "BBC Radio 4 - Crossing Continents, Forced Sterilisation in Uzbekistan", "BBC World Service - Assignment , Forcible Sterilisation In Uzbekistan", "Institute for War and Peace Reporting | Giving Voice, Driving Change", "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights", "Not A Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women", "Uzbekistan: No Love Lost in Karakalpak Bride Thefts", "Bride Kidnapping Returns in Central Asia, "Bride Kidnapping Returns in Central Asia", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Women_in_Uzbekistan&oldid=1055142055, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 14 November 2021, at 03:54. 14 Marfua Tokhtakhodjaeva and Elmira Turgumbekova, "The Female Intelligentsia of Central Asia: Old and New Problems," in Tokhtakhodjaeva and Turgumbekova, The Daughters of Amazons: Voices from Central Asia (Lahore, 1996), p. 27. This channel, which was set up a year and a half ago on Facebook and Telegram, helps women who have experienced violence. You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side. However, after the independence of Uzbekistan in 1991, in a push to reestablish the Uzbek tradition, the progress of womens rights in Uzbekistan took a hit when the nation reintroduced conservative social customs. Crackdown in the Fargona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination. 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. It was Soviet rule that saw the creation of the republic as a territorial unit, the codification of languages, the writing of histories, the education of several generations of the elite, and the "liberation" of Uzbek women. Uzbekistan. 4, May 1998; Mehrdad Haghayegi, Islam & Politics in Central Asia, New York, 1996. 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. This movement encouraged female education, and in the 1980s, women formed an estimated 41% of university students. The Borgen Project is an incredible nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger and working towards ending them. Though the Communist Party backed away from its most vigorous efforts to force social change in the early 1930s, recruitment of women into the party-state bureaucracy and into education continued.6 The collectivization of agriculture, the extension of state control over the economy, and the promotion of universal primary education during this period laid the groundwork for the other fundamental feature of Soviet-style women's emancipation: women's participation in paid employment outside the home.7 Though some women of the older generation continued to veil, by the end of World War II veiled women became an increasingly rare sight. [13], The UN has recognized some efforts of the government to curtail human trafficking. Contradictory assessments of the meaning of the Soviet legacy for Uzbek women continue to animate debates on the contemporary status of women in society. Anara Tabyshalieva, "Revival of Traditions in Post-Soviet Central Asia," Making the Transition Work for Women in Europe and Central Asia, World Bank Discussion Paper No.

[12] In 2001 it was estimated that approximately 500 women a year kill themselves because of abusive situations. 9 Shireen Akiner, "Between tradition and modernity: the dilemma facing contemporary Central Asian women," in Mary Buckley, ed. 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. 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. 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. Gender Commission of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis shared their outcomes of the conducted initiatives and outlined the need for representation of women in law enforcement and the justice system. In a recent case, police refused to accept a statement by a 14-year old girl that she had been raped, because she was of the age of consent and had no obvious signs of injury. All rights reserved. Rural women are particularly at risk of violence against women and girls due to their disadvantaged status. in Rosalind Marsh (ed. What can you do? See also Lynne Attwood, "The post-Soviet woman in the move to the market: a return to domesticity and dependence?" [5], Uzbekistan has universal suffrage;[4] however, "according to data from surveys conducted by the Public Opinion Centre, 64% of urban and 50% of rural women consider that men have greater opportunities for implementing their rights in the political sphere". Contradictory streams of government rhetoric, however, have sent mixed policy messages, since government also points to women's "traditional" role as the touchstone for its cultural heritage.1. 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. Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences! In recent years, societal pressures have pushed women to marry young and spend their lives taking care of the household. 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." Between 1959 and 1989, the ethnic Uzbek population of Soviet Uzbekistan increased by 180.3 percent, confounding conventional wisdom that as female literacy increases, fertility rates drop.12, On the eve of independence, during the brief interlude of glasnost in the late 1980s, the Uzbek educated elites, together with their counterparts across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, began to decry the negative aspects of the Soviet legacy. To discuss the role of women in Uzbekistan and mainstreaming of gender perspectives in drug, crime and corruption policies, some 30 women leaders of senate, judges, prosecutors, including representatives of the Ministry of Support of Mahalla and Family, Ministry of Internal Affairs and UN of the Republic of Uzbekistan gathered at the roundtable and panel discussion led by Ms. Tanzilya Narbayeva, the Chairperson of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and Ms. Ghada Waly, the UNODC Executive Director. Meanwhile, the Womens Committee is proposing that the Uzbek public examine its draft legislation and comment on it. 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). Previously, if you wanted to end your marriage, you had to ask your local council office for permission, but now the Oila centre is responsible. 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. [22], Overview of the status of women in Uzbekistan, Gender representation on corporate boards of directors, Science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Maternal healthcare and availability of contraceptives, Womens legal rights and government representation, UN, CEDAW: (Concluding Observations, 2006) 5, UNFPA, State of the World Population 2006:( A Passage to Hope; Women and International Migration, 2006) 49. 1 Nick Megoran, "Theorizing gender, ethnicity and the nation-state in Central Asia," Central Asian Survey (1999), 18(1), pp. UNDP, Human Development Report: Uzbekistan, 1999 (Tashkent, 1999), p. 74.

Its the same with the hotline: some of my clients have tried to call the number when they have been in a difficult situation, but the line was either down or inaccessible., Natroshvili believes that these steps remain critically inadequate: This is still a new issue for our country. 22 Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, May 26, 2000. 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.

17 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 Huffington Post, https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/The_Borgen_Project_Logo_small.jpg, The Truth about Womens Rights in Uzbekistan, Promoting Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution, 3 Ways the UN is Helping Zimbabwe Provide Better Health Care For All.

Then in May 2019, the Womens Committee published a new draft bill against domestic violence, which would also protect women from harassment or bullying at work and at home. There are also problems with divorces: even a court ruling against a husband for beating his wife isnt sufficient grounds for divorce in judges eyes. Weve been talking about violence and gender questions for a year or two, but everything is still at an early stage. Uzbekistan, which became independent in 1991, is a young state with claims to an ancient past. 13 Azimova and Alimova, "Women's Position in Uzbekistan", pp. This channel began by explaining what was wrong with the debasement of women and why reactions in the spirit of its her own fault are bad, as well as how to help anyone who has experienced violence. In February, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree that aims to fundamentally improve support for women and strengthen the institution of the family. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. After a time, having acquired a more or less loyal and appreciative following, the project produced an anonymous form for women who had experienced or were experiencing or witnessing domestic violence. This social concept encourages child marriage throughout the country, particularly in rural regions. Therefore, poverty may induce families to marry off their daughters earlier; and husband's families have little incentive to invest in the new bride's education. In Tashkent, for example, there are local projects on feminism and violence prevention, and there is even a growing independent feminist community. Also, the nation has set up almost 200 shelters across the country to provide for women escaping violence. Many people, for example, have discovered the concept of blaming the victim and learning why we mustnt put the emphasis on the victim.

Uzbek women Under Soviet rule 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. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) acknowledges the fundamental importance of women's equal participation in decision-making, equal pay for equal work, equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work and access to healthcare services that respond to women's needs. But I can see from our followers that some attitudes are changing. 59-61.

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. We need to change societys perception of how things have to be.

Neither the law, nor society is interested in protecting victims, instead telling them to find their own way out of difficult circumstances. This has led to health complications such as infertility and chronic conditions. With men dominating government positions for years, a female in an authoritative government position stands as a progressive shift and a promising sign of political changes. 8 Martha Brill Olcott, "Central Asia: The Reformers Challenge a Traditional Society," in Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissinger, The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (Boulder, 1990), p. 266; UNDP, Human Development Report, Uzbekistan, 1997 (Tashkent, 1997). Fortunately, however, President Mirziyoyev has expressed his desire to transform womens rights in Uzbekistan. The Speak Out forum then shares the experience of victims of this violence.

In Tashkent, women facing violence at home have nowhere to go. Overall economic contraction in Uzbekistan has led to an upsurge in unemployment; although official statistics minimize this problem.34 Growth of women's unemployment in the state sector of the economy has been offset to some extent by rising employment in the informal sector and in agriculture. The law criticised the current situation with womens rights and their participation in affairs of state. Irina Matvienko, the human rights defender who set up the project, feels that public attitudes to feminism are changing, but the changes are not major ones. 5. By 1997, that figure had dropped to 37 percent. Currently people look to traditions and persistent stereotypes which have been passed down from generation to generation. Last year, the committee also opened the first shelters for women who are victims of domestic violence. For example, the labor market is sex-segregated, and women are usually paid lower wages. 18 Haghayegi, Islam & Politics; Bakhtiiar Babajanov, "Vozrozhdenie deiatel'nosti sufiiskikh grupp v Uzbekistane," Tsentral'naia Aziia i Kavkaz no. 32 UNDP, Human Development Report: Uzbekistan, 1999, p. 74. Fundamental decisions about a young woman's life-whether or not she will work outside the home, continue with school, with whom she will socialize, and how often she will see her natal family-are made largely by her mother- and father-in-law.31, Strongly correlated with the trend toward earlier marriages for women, women's educational attainment in the post-Soviet period has declined precipitously. The women are sent as tourists with promises of employment as nannies, tutors or baby-sitters, but they often end up working in the sex industry.[13], "Gender roles in the economy changed during the Soviet period and continue to change in independence. 294-295. For more details. One important project is the Speak Out! online discussion group. Class Dismissed: Discriminatory Expulsions of Muslim Students, A Human Rights Watch Report, vol.

Also, it was suggested that the understanding the interrelationship between gender and transnational organized crime, drug-related policies, counterterrorism and corruption is vital in ensuring that policies, programmes and activities are effective for the population as a whole. 11, no.

4 Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia: 1919-1929 (Princeton, 1974). [4][5], However, trafficking still persists, as Uzbekistan is both a supplier and consumer of trafficked women.

Until 2017, for example, women couldnt travel freely in order to leave the country, a woman needed a sticker (the equivalent of an exit visa) from the visa and registration department, and this required the permission of her parents or husband. 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. This official initiative to support women is, of course, important in itself, but there is a built-in contradiction. However, the reliance on religious marriage ceremonies, anecdotal evidence shows, indicates that many marriages are contracted in fact before being registered with state agencies. Elected in 2016, Mirziyoyev spoke about the importance of women within Uzbek society, noting their problem-solving skills and administrative capabilities.

Discussion of the projects proposals ended a month later, but theres been no further progress the draft bill remains in a state of limbo. 292-293. [4], As of 2004 Uzbekistans election law requires political parties to nominate at least 30 percent female candidates for the parliament.