Women, Violence, and Tajikistan
Martina Vandenberg

In the debate over the relationship between women and drug trafficking, particularly in post-conflict societies such as Tajikistan, there is much that we do not know. But an understanding of the impact of war-related and post-war violence against women, combined with entrenched societal attitudes towards women in Tajikistan, may inform the analysis of women’s involvement in drug-related crime.

"Involvement of women" in drug-related crimes has increased significantly in recent years, jumping 19 percent from 1996 to 1997, and an additional 27.4 percent in 1998 (International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Women 2000: An Investigation into the Status of Women’s Rights in Central and South-Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States, 2000, p. 439.). According to the Tajik Ministry of Internal Affairs, 248 Tajik women were convicted for drug-related crimes in 1997. That same year, law enforcement authorities detained eighty-one Tajik women for drug dealing and drug crimes in other countries: forty-one in Uzbekistan, thirty-seven in Russia, two in Kyrgyzstan, and one in Kazakhstan (Marianna Aripova, "Narcobusiness in Tajikistan -- in the Hands of Women," ASIA-PLUS Bulletin #13, (http://www.internews.ru/ASIA-PLUS/bulletin_51/2.html), July 1998). And in 1999, 314 women faced drug charges (Statement of Mizrob Kabirov, Chairman of the Justice Council, Tajik TV, February 7, 2001). While these statistics paint a dire portrait of women and drug criminality in Tajikistan, this presentation aspires to place those statistics in the broader context of women’s human rights and to suggest questions for further research and investigation.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajik women have faced a tremendous upsurge of discrimination and violence. Women suffered rape in the civil war, and since the war have suffered domestic violence in their homes, rape, and sex discrimination in employment and education. Many families have slipped into extreme poverty, including a large proportion of female-headed households.

Wartime Rape

Human Rights Watch and foreign journalists both reported rape during the conflict in 1992-3 (See Human Rights Watch Short Report, In the Wake of the Civil War, December 1993). Staff working for UNHCR in Tajikistan in 1993 encountered rape survivors returning from northern Afghanistan’s refugee camps, women who had fled the war but could not escape the trauma of rape. One UNHCR staff member, Zarafshon Zuhurova, wrote:

...nothing had prepared me for the plight of these women who came to us in the UNHCR office every day, desperate for help...One woman told us that her fourteen-year-old daughter was raped, and then, because of shame and poverty, she gave her daughter to an old man in marriage as his second wife. In some cases, the girl is given to the man who rapes her. In another case, a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl was abducted by a former military man. She had never been touched before, but the man tore off her dress, laughed at her naked humiliation, and raped her all day long..." (Zarafshon Zuhurova, "Women and War: From Healing to Empowerment," Informal Paper distributed at the OSCE Supplementary Implementation Meeting on Gender Issues, Vienna, 14-15 June 1999.)

As Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh wrote in 1994, "The rape of unmarried women in villages was a devastating blow to the ‘Nomusi Tojik,’ the chastity of the Tajiks, their principles for law and order..." (Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, "Women and War in Tajikistan," Central Asia Monitor online supplement, Issue No. 1, 1994 [http://www.chalikze.com/camwom.htm]). Unfortunately, the belief that rape shames the victim, rather than the perpetrator, remains widespread in many cultures, including Tajik culture. Perpetrators committed these rapes, as well as other war crimes, with complete impunity. Women raped during the war have no legal recourse, nor have they had access to trauma-related rehabilitation programs.

Violence against Women

As in many post-conflict societies, domestic violence appears to have spiked upward after the official cessation of hostilities. Tajik folklore and sayings provide disturbing insights into traditional views of domestic violence. "Nobody beats a good wife who is obedient" and "Even the doorstep laughs at the quarrel between husband and wife" are just two examples. In 1999, the World Health Organization conducted a study on violence against women in Tajikistan, surveying 900 women above the age of fourteen in three districts of the country (World Health Organization, 1999 Pilot Survey in Tajikistan: Violence Against Women," distributed at Workshop on Violence against Women in Tajikistan, Dushanbe, 29-30 March 2000). Among the respondents, ten percent had entered into an unofficial polygamous marriage or nikoh. One in three women reported experiencing some form of abuse during girlhood and adolescence: 35% had experienced physical violence and 44% had experienced psychological violence. Overall, one in three women reported experiencing physical abuse since girlhood; beatings most commonly came from husbands, inlaws, and relatives. Forty-seven percent of married women reported having been forced to have sex by their husband. Among women in a monogamous marriage, 42% reported being sexually abused by their husband as compared to 62% of those living in a polygamous marriage (Ibid.).

Not surprisingly, official statistics do not reflect the WHO report’s findings. In 1997, women reported 102 cases of rape, up fifteen percent from the 88 cases reported in 1996. Of those 102 cases, only 71 were registered, and only 54 investigated and directed to court (Jane Falkingham for the Asian Development Bank, "Country Briefing Paper: Women and Gender Relations in Tajikistan," April 2000. P. 22). The government of Tajikistan only recently recognized the issue of domestic violence; no official statistics are available.

Non-governmental organizations dedicated to working with survivors of rape and domestic violence began to emerge in 1996. In 1998, an NGO in Khujand, "Gulruhsor," conducted a survey on violence among young women in the Leninabad region (Activists founded the crisis center after an eighteen-year-old girl was raped and committed suicide. See "Organizational Background," "Gulruhsor" Organization, document on file with the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch). Girls and women identified widespread violence in their lives, including low social position, forced domestic labor, beatings and insults from fathers and brothers, forced marriage, absence of choice on reproductive decisions, economic dependence and absence of the right to use the family budget, prohibitions on dress, as well as verbal, physical and psychological abuse (Report of the Crisis Center "Gulruhsor," 1998).

Violence against Women and Drugs: The Connection?

It is hoped that this presentation will spark a discussion on the connection between women’s human rights and women’s involvement in drug trafficking in Tajikistan. Some questions for further debate and research include:

• Are women being coerced into drug dealing or trafficking?
• Have researchers interviewed women in prison about their experiences with violence both during and after the civil war?
• How has the feminization of poverty affected women’s willingness to participate in drug-related crime?
• According to press accounts, many women face strip-searches and gynecological exams at border crossings. How does this state-sponsored abuse of women’s privacy interact with violence against women more broadly?
• Over 70 percent of women surveyed by WHO stated that they would never report rape or sexual assault to authorities, citing a lack of trust of police, prosecutors, and judges. How do the failure of law enforcement and corruption affect the drug trafficking situation?
• Are the government’s efforts to capture "mules" and "small fish" at the border, rather than drug kingpins operating inside Tajikistan, having a discriminatory impact on women who are used as human containers for drug trafficking?

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Posted February 20, 2001 © Eurasianet
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