In August, a 17-year-old schoolgirl in Kyzylorda finally returned to her family after enduring months of sexual slavery at the hands of her classmates. The multifaceted failure of school officials, local leaders, and the community to identify and address the situation angered and confused the public. In light of the many recent developments in child protection, as well as domestic and gender-based violence, in Central Asia, this story pushes us to reflect on the different ways the countries of Central Asia have addressed these issues.
The governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have both recently passed legislation that strengthens protections for women and children against domestic violence. In April 2024, Kazakhstan amended its law to reinstate battery and light bodily harm as criminal offenses; they had been decriminalized in 2017. Kazakhstan also added several clauses to protect minors from offenses like cyberbullying and sexual harassment. In April 2023, Uzbekistan criminalized domestic violence and strengthened penalties for perpetrators of sexual violence or stalking.
Both countries’ legislative changes were inextricably linked to high-profile incidents involving the murder or rape of women and children. In late 2022, several teenage girls living in a group home in the Khorazm region of Uzbekistan were discovered to have been raped for 10 months by local officials. The incident prompted public outrage and the sentencing of the perpetrators. The murder of Saltanat Nukenova late last year and the ensuing high-profile case against her perpetrator prompted similar public consternation around domestic violence in Kazakhstan. In January, the Kazakh-language film Dastur (Kazakh for “Tradition”), a psycho-horror film centered around a young woman facing gender-based violence, broke box office records. Now, just months after the revisions to Kazakhstan’s legislation, the shocking Kyzylorda case has reignited public conversation around the increased vulnerability of children in situations of physical or sexual violence. Legislation alone is clearly not enough to prevent or protect them from such situations.
“Had the system been working, it shouldn’t have happened,” says Anel Kulakhmetova, a child protection specialist currently at Narxoz University in Kazakhstan. “The system needs to change. … The law focuses on tertiary protection – so after the violence has happened. School officials shouldn’t be afraid of losing their positions to do something. There should be a very simple ‘pipeline’ for what institutions [like] schools, local communities, police should do to address situations where a child’s safety is in question.”
While the law does stipulate additional requirements for institutions like law enforcement to collect evidence for reported cases of domestic violence or for educational facilities to report illegal activity involving minors, there is no clear mechanism for monitoring the law’s effectiveness in preventing violence. Nor is there a plan to address origins of violence such as stalking, psychological abuse, or financial abuse and extortion.
“A lot of violence is because of a lack of understanding,” says Kulakhmetova. “Schools talk about sexual education and rights, but students are told to read a chapter and ask their parents if they have questions… Because of the taboos around discussing sexual education, they don’t know about these fundamental concepts.”
The public health and legal infrastructure to support the law’s success, and to support and protect children, is lacking, as witnessed with the tragic case in Kyzylorda. The government has plans to open up to 200 crisis centers by 2027 and to fund additional support for children in the form of psychological assistance and mobile apps. But, because the domestic violence law is relatively new, modes of implementation and complementing laws have largely yet to be developed.
In early July, the government of Kazakhstan passed a Law on Countering Trafficking in Persons. Among other provisions, such as more severe penalties and mandates for government agencies, the law “will be responsible for raising awareness among school children, college and universities students on how to protect themselves from trafficking and will provide special social services to child trafficking-in-person victims,” notes Gulnaz Kelekeyeva, lead on Winrock International’s Kazakhstan Actions Against Trafficking in Children Project.
While these developments are promising, it will take time to ensure that the population, government, and institutions walk in lockstep and survivors – particularly youth – are not bogged down by confusing bureaucracy or potentially retraumatized.
As Gulnaz notes, “Education and health facilities are still unaware about the role they play in preventing and combating child trafficking … Professionals working with children should be trained on how to speak to, question, and identify child trafficking victims.”
As the Kyzylorda case demonstrates, educators and others who interact with children have a critical role to protect them – if they know what to look for and what to do when they suspect abuse or trafficking.
The situation on domestic violence and child protection in Uzbekistan is different, albeit with some parallels to Kazakhstan. In April 2023, the government of Uzbekistan criminalized domestic violence via an amendment to existing legislation protecting women and children. The amendment also consolidated several articles related to physical, psychological, and economic violence against children, standardized 18 as the “age of maturity” for several offenses against minors, and instated more severe punishments for actions like the rape or extortion of children. Notably, in the past year and a half, Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court in several instances has also clarified legal definitions or emphasized that children could be the target of domestic and sexual violence.
While laws to prosecute offenders are important and valuable, the protection angle is woefully under-addressed.
“Many children do not assess the situation that has occurred as sexual harassment. They try to not tell their loved ones about it, and they become secretive and silent,” says Shamsiddin Kadyrov, a child psychologist currently working in Uzbekistan. “There were children in my sessions who had experienced sexual harassment earlier in childhood, but only now do they realize that this was harassment.”
Local and international organizations in Uzbekistan have also been expanding their programing to offer trainings to school officials, child protection workers, and law enforcement on child protection practices and changes in the law to inform them of what constitutes violence under the new codes. At the same time, the new law has consolidated child protection efforts and functions under the National Agency for Social Protection (NASP). This move has positioned NASP as the coordinating body to help implement the law and improve the country’s social protection system writ-large.
In early September, a collaborative effort between the NASP, Columbia University, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) helped launch a promising new Center for Advancing Community Strengths and Social Wellbeing. The center helps train social workers and coordinate the multi-sectoral efforts needed across the fields of health, education, and justice to protect children in Uzbekistan.
The law provides a solid base for the reforms needed within Uzbekistan’s child protection system, but further plans are required to ensure the development of appropriate support and prevention services. Indeed, UNICEF has stressed valuable next steps for Uzbekistan to make this law successful, such as raising awareness among the country’s legal community about developments within child protection laws as well as investing in “a comprehensive and coherent child and family social service system” that implements “programmes to address violence against women and girls” along with additional public outreach.
Right now, a law on “Ending All Forms of Violence Against Children” has passed the Senate of Uzbekistan and is awaiting signature by the president. The law will clarify new definitions of important topics like bullying and child neglect. It also further emphasizes the NASP’s coordinating role across government agencies and, arguably most importantly, in informing the public and educating children themselves.
Even now, misinformation from bloggers about the law is floating around, with one saying that parents can “get in trouble for calling their children names on the basis of it degrading their children’s dignity.” This claim is baseless and further emphasizes the sensitivity of the topic in the country.
Ultimately, these laws in Uzbekistan signal positive change and represent valuable work to address child protection issues there. However, the longer-term fundamental social, behavioral, and institutional changes needed to thoroughly protect children are still in their early stages.
For both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, new laws on domestic violence and protections for children are welcome developments. But, Kazakhstan’s legislation offers a foggier road ahead for implementation than that of neighboring Uzbekistan, where additional functions have been spelled out. In both cases, ensuring that the public is properly informed about the laws and their goals is paramount to their success. Educating parents about alternative methods of parenting (free from violence, centering the child’s needs, etc.) and children themselves about their rights is the first step to spurring healthier development for Central Asia’s children. These new laws signal a willingness to at least begin conversations at the grassroots level, where the work will truly take place. While these efforts are steps in the right direction for both countries, much more remains to be done. Every child in Central Asia deserves to grow up in an environment free from violence, where protection is not only a policy, but a reality.