Tajikistan
Population size and demographic: 10.1 million. 49.63% of the population is female and 50.37% is male.
Women at Work:
Tajikistan ranks 134 out of 153 in the 2020 Global Gender Report. The female labour participation rate is 29.3%. Unemployment for women stands at 3.94% of the labour force. Only 14.8% of all legislators, senior officials and managers are women and 41.1% of all professional and technical workers are women (1). Moreover, only 8% of all firms have a female majority ownership and only 9.6% of firms have female top managers. On a scale of 1 to 7 in advancement of women to leadership roles, Tajikistan stands at 5.27. And when it comes to gender parity in tech roles, the country stands at 3.13 out of 7, 7 being the best outcome. (1)
Women’s Participation in Parliament:
Tajikistan ranks 128 out of 153 countries when it comes to political empowerment (1). In Tajikistan, 26.98% of MPs are women (2). And, in 2020, women made up 5.9% of all ministerial positions. Women gained their right to vote in Tajikistan in 1924 (1). When it comes to civil servants in certain ministries, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection had the highest rate of women managers, with a 28% proportion, closely followed by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Labour, Migration and Employment, both with a 25% proportion. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources both had 0% women managers. (3)
Violence against Women:
When it comes to violence against women, in 2018 14% of all women aged 15 to 49 years reported having experienced physical and/or sexual abuse from a partner (current or former) in the last 12 months (4). The rate went up to 26.4% when it comes to women having experienced this kind of abuse it their lifetime (5). When it comes to child marriage, Tajikistan has a rate of 8.7% of girls aged 20 to 24 being married or in union before they reached 18 years of age (5). According to a study with over 10,000 Tajikistani women, the most prevalent form of violence is physical violence, reported by 23.2% of participants and emotional violence, reported by 15.5%. About 1.8% reported having experienced sexual violence. (6)
Health:
When it comes to health, Tajikistan ranks 72 out of 153 countries. The healthy life expectancy for women is 65.3 years. Maternal mortality stands at 17 deaths per 100,000 births and 94.8% of all births are attended by skilled personnel. About 68.4% of all women aged 15 to 49 received antenatal care of at least four visits. (1) The adolescent fertility rate stood at 54.3 per 1000 girls aged 15 to 19 in 2016. In 2017, only 52.1% of women had their need for family planning met with modern methods. (4)
Education:
In Tajikistan there is little difference when it comes to literacy rate for men and women. The literacy rate for women in Tajikistan is 99.7%, with men having a 99.8% rate. Enrolment in primary school for girls stood at 96%, dropping to 78.8% for secondary school and only 26.9%
for tertiary education. When it comes to educational attainment for women, Tajikistan ranks 123 out of 153 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report of 2020 (1).
Current Law and Policy:
The Government of Tajikistan commits to end violence against women and girls. The National Committee on Family and Women under the Government of Tajikistan as the lead responsible agency for coordination and implementation of gender equality policy in the country has committed to continue its efforts for prevention of violence against women and girls via effective implementation of the National Strategy on Activation of the Women’s Role for the Years 2011-2020. As part of the activities within the implementation of the National Strategy, the Committee on Women and Family Affairs will continue to enhance the quality and access to state services for domestic violence survivors by strengthening the capacities of the state service providers and by conducting activities aimed at prevention of violence against women and girls. The Committee will ensure the implementation of the recently adopted Law on Domestic Violence. More specifically, it will focus on enhancing the legal and institutional framework to combat violence against women, strengthening the capacities of crisis centres to work with cases of violence against women and improving data collection on violence against women. The Committee will ensure the participation of women and girls in all levels of the decision-making process and create the conditions and opportunities to ensure women’s employment in all sectors.
Public spending - Funds from the State Budget have been set aside for the Action Plan for the Prevention of Violence in the Family from 2014-2023 but the figures have not been published. The implementation of the Plan has been criticised for a lack of funds to ensure it is fully effective. [5]
1 https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf
2 https://www.ipu.org/parliament/TJ
3 https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/institutional-document/185615/tajikistan-cga.pdf
4 https://data.unwomen.org/country/tajikistan
5 https://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/asia/tajikistan
6 https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/707536/6/Vinnakota_et_al_2022.pdf