The economic crisis in Turkmenistan, caused by the fall in hard currency revenue from gas sales, is forcing residents of the “Motherland of Prosperity” — this is the country’s slogan for 2019 — to keep finding new ways to earn money. Turkmen.news has already written about Turkmen citizens travelling abroad as shuttle traders. Our fellow countrymen have taken crockery and household items to Zhanaozen (Kazakhstan), domestic appliances to Urgench (Uzbekistan), and foodstuffs to Istanbul, while huge bags of Turkmen textiles caused a malfunction in the baggage system at Almaty airport.
IndustriALL Global Union is calling for the immediate release of Kazakh trade union leader, Erlan Baltabay, after he was sentenced to seven years in prison by a Kazakh court on 17 July.
The ITUC has harshly condemned the sentencing of Kazakhstan trade union leader Erlan Baltabay. Efforts to improve freedom of association for working people are once again jeopardised; but the country’s new leadership could still intervene.
The 12th PERC Summer School “Democracy and freedoms in Europe and Central Asia” took place in Budapest, Hungary, on 9-11 July. In his opening speech PERC President Irakli Petriashvili spoke about challenges to the freedom of association and democracy in the region, growing inequalities and gender gaps, and called all unions to be vigilant and pro-active to prevent further erosion of democracy and to advance workers’ rights and freedoms.
In Tashkent, women facing violence at home have nowhere to go. No one has heard of shelters, and if a woman has no friends or relatives, the situation becomes impossible: no hotel will take a locally registered single woman, on suspicion of prostitution. It’s pointless contacting the police, even in the most desperate circumstances. 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”.
Dear Madam and Sirs,
We, the undersigned international human rights organizations, write to you to express our utmost and urgent concern about the ongoing wrongful imprisonment of Azimjon Askarov and the deterioration of his health, and to urge you to advocate with the Kyrgyz government for his immediate release, and his transfer to a safe third country for medical treatment.
As pressure built against Kazakhstan at the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) conference in Geneva this month to address the country’s poor record on trade union rights, authorities back home are seeking to jail an independent trade union leader.
Here you can find a letter sent by ITUC to the President of Kazakhstan regarding violations of ILO Convention 87.
For the fourth year in a row, the Government of Turkmenistan failed to meet the minimum standards to address human trafficking outlined in the 2019 US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, resulting in a Tier 3 ranking – the lowest possible ranking.
A criminal case has been brought against Malokhat Eshonkulova, an independent Tashkent-based human rights defender, by the investigative department of the Jizzakh regional police based on a statement by Alisher Abduganiyev, the hokim of the Zaamin district.