What do people, many of whom likely unfamiliar with the words, imagine when they hear “pregnancy conflicts?” Perhaps they think of conflicts of “having or not having” or “raising or not raising” a child.

Piccolare was established in Tokyo as a non-governmental organization with a mission: to stand by and extend support to all women and girls who are in trouble or unsure of what to do with their pregnancy. The word “piccolare” was created by combining the words piko (navel, center or core in Hawaiian) and coccolare (to cuddle, to treat with great care in Italian). The name of the organization reflects its mission.

To the young women and girls, the “conflicts” they bring to Piccolare are matters of life or death such as “I will lose my job, if they find out about my pregnancy,” “I will lose the place where I stay,”“I want to go to the hospital, but I cannot afford to,” or “Is there any hospital that would accept me?”

In this society, there are “pregnancy conflicts” arising from fear of losing employment or places to live or being deprived of the life they have been barely maintaining. The pregnant women and girls who have these problems are mostly young, between ten to twenty years old.

A nineteen-year-old pregnant woman, calling herself “Stray Pregnant Woman” who worked six to seven days a week as a day worker and stayed at an internet café at night, spoke of her fear of being refused by hospitals. A twenty-two-year old pregnant woman contacted Piccolare during winter while trying to keep warm by staying close to a vending machine in a park. She suffered violence from a man she turned to for help. An eighteen-year-old feared that she might end up not being able to contact anyone because she could no longer pay the phone fee for her smartphone.

Women and girls who worry about their pregnancy and yet unable to consult anyone and bear the “conflicts” within them are not few. And they are not in distant and unknown places but are somewhere nearby.

Death from Abuse and Teenage Pregnancies

Government reports show that, among cases of death of infants due to abuse, the proportion of teenage mothers is significantly high. The proportion of these teenage mothers in the total number of births is stable at around 1.3 percent, while the rate of pregnancy among youth involved in cases of infant death due to abuse is at 17 percent (excluding death in collective suicides).1 Many deaths of infants due to abuse happen on the day they were born, with fourteen cases out of fifty-two reported cases.2 Of the fourteen cases, eleven infants were abused by their own mothers, seven of whom were twenty-four years old or younger. And in all cases, the mothers gave birth not in a medical facility but in the toilet or bathroom at home.

Approximately 90 percent have not been issued the Mother and Child Health Handbook, or received pre-natal health checkups.3 The deaths can be seen as the result of women and girls giving birth alone, unable to reach out to anyone.


Imagining Giving Birth Alone

Giving birth at the risk of one’s own life must have been a frightening experience.

The 2017 government report states that “The feeling of not wanting anyone to know about this [pregnancy] was stronger than the feeling of wanting to help the baby.” These words express the degree of their desperation.

If someone found out their pregnancy, they might completely lose their livelihood.

Are These Women and Girls the Abusers?

Why did they have to give birth at home on their own? Why did not anybody notice their pregnancy? Why did they have to continue their pregnancy?

Perhaps they would not have ended up as abusers if the methods of contraception were affordable and available, if they did not have to pay for the cost of giving birth, if the society had in place mechanisms that would prevent the isolation of the pregnant women and girls.

I hope that we will be more aware that it is this society that is the real abuser that caused the deaths of the children.


Pregnancies: Responsibility of the Women and Girls Alone?

Pregnant because of enjo kosai (being paid for dates), a twenty-year old woman began suffering morning sickness and was unable to earn a living. She started staying at her acquaintances’ homes, one after the other. By the time she approached Piccolare, the only thing she had eaten or drank for five days was orange juice. She was about to leave the place she was staying in for a few days. When we picked her up from the place, her lips were cracked and she could barely sit up.

Piccolare is often consulted by “drifting” pregnant young women and girls who have no place to stay and move from home to home of friends or acquaintances who are not their partners, as well as by teenage girls who may fall into such situation. Without the pregnancy, they could have continued earning income and having a place to stay.

Behind most of these “drifting” women and girls are problems that they cannot solve by themselves such as poverty, abuse, domestic violence, other forms of violence, precarious employment, mental illness and various forms of social exclusion.
Many of the women and girls who managed to come to Piccolare had been unable to ask anyone for help. When people are continuously exposed to poverty, abuse, domestic violence and other forms of violence, they become uncertain on whether they are allowed to ask for help or not. That is why they have been managing on their own, despite numerous difficulties.
But since pregnancy is not a matter they can face on their own, they were forced to ask for help.

We greet each woman or girl with
    Thank you for coming to consult us. From here on, let us think together with you about what to do next.

We listen to what they want to do and accompany them to local public offices and medical institutions to secure the necessary social welfare support  and services while negotiating with them so that they can avoid suffering any disadvantages. We accompany them to local public offices and medical institutions to secure the necessary social welfare resources. When they are finally able to see a path to move forward, many of them would say, “I thought I was going to be scolded, but I was surprised that I was thanked and praised.” They thought they would be berated because they believed it was their fault that they became pregnant.

The initial contact with the “Stray Pregnant Woman” was through an e-mail message. When I read the words “Stray Pregnant Woman,” I could not forget how devastated I was thinking about the desperation and isolation she must have felt. In her e-mail she wrote that she saw on the internet that “stray pregnant women” were refused by hospitals, and this was all their fault. Even though she could not get pregnant on her own, she wrote that it was all her fault. Responsibility is rarely sought from the other party in the pregnancy, and instead placed on the pregnant women alone. These women and girls find themselves in such unreasonable situation.

Is pregnancy the responsibility of women and girls alone? Why do pregnant women and girls have to take responsibility for the pregnancies? And why are the abusers in infant deaths all mothers who gave birth to them?

You cannot get pregnant by yourself. Why is this simple truth forgotten in this society?

Irrationality of Stigmatization of Contraceptives and Abortion

There are other irrationalities involving “pregnancy conflicts.”

In Japan, access to contraception and abortion is extremely poor. A campaign to improve access to emergency contraceptive pills collected 67,000 signatures, which were submitted to the government with a letter requesting the improvement of access. I hope immediate action is taken on this matter.

Under the Maternal Health Act, abortion is allowed only for health or economic reasons and in cases of rape. In these cases, induced abortion is allowed to be performed by a designated doctor.4

This irrationality isolates the pregnant women and girls who suffer from inner conflicts, leads to the way the society looks at them and shuts them out.

Changing the Way the Pregnant Women and Girls are Viewed

In May 2020, Piccolare cooperated with another non-governmental organization, PIECES, to open a place called PISARA for young pregnant women and girls who have no place to go and are “drifting.”

A pregnant girl who did not get along with her mother and ran away repeatedly from home spent two restful days at the place. We sent her back to her home, telling her that she could come back to PISARA any time when things got difficult. But she stayed home, gave birth safely, is now raising her child and working towards becoming independent.

Just being able to know that you have a safe place to go any time you want, may empower you to live through the days.
If so, when society’s positive view of these women and girls inspires safety, they may find it easier to live, even when their circumstances are severe. For this purpose, it is necessary to make the problems of these women and girls known and visible to the public. Piccolare is currently preparing a “White Paper on Pregnancy Conflicts – from the consultation desk of Pregnancy SOS Tokyo” to be published in December 2020.

Kiyomi Matsushita is a Social Worker and a staffmember for Consultation Support and Board Member of Piccolare.

For further information, please contact: Kiyomi Matsushita, Piccolare, 2-6-14, Senkawa, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-0041 Japan; ph 050-3134-4479; e-mail: info@piccolare.org; https://piccolare.org/.

Endnotes

1    See 14th Report on the Deaths by Child Abuse, Special Committee on Child Abuse (in Japanese), August 2018, www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000173329_00001.html.
2    See 15th Report on the Deaths by Child Abuse, Special Committee on Child Abuse (in Japanese), August 2019, www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000190801_00003.html.
3    14th Report on the Deaths by Child Abuse, Special Committee on Child Abuse, op. cit.
4    See Article 14(1), Chapter III, Maternal Health Protection, Maternal Health Act, www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/law/detail/?id=2603&vm=04&re=02.

 

Migrant workers, who toil in settings that make them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, are entitled to decent work and fair migration. The fair migration principle “takes into account labour market needs while placing the rights of all workers, including migrants, at its core.”¹ The International Labour Organization (ILO) stresses two targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—8.8 (Decent work and economic growth - Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers) and 10.7 (Reduced inequalities - orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people)—that specifically mention migrant workers and migration.²

The recent COVID-19 infection of significant number of migrant workers in Singapore and the reported loss of job or non-payment of salary in Thailand and Malaysia³ illustrate the vulnerability of migrant workers not only to exploitation but also to spread of communicable diseases. The migrant workers should definitely be covered in pursuing other SDGs such as SDG 3 on ensuring healthy lives and promoting the “well-being for all at all ages.”

Southeast Asian Workers

The ILO reports that migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos “experience exploitation and abuse because of inadequate protection of their labour rights during recruitment and employment,” “regardless of the documents they hold.”⁴

Also, “[w]omen face additional challenges in accessing safe and legal migration opportunities, with the type of work available to them often paying less and affording fewer legal protections due to lack of formalization.”⁵

These migrant workers are mostly “employed in low-skilled, labour-intensive jobs in agriculture, fisheries, domestic work, manufacturing, construction, hospitality, and food services.”⁶

At the recruitment stage,⁷

[l]ow-skilled  workers  are  particularly  vulnerable  to  falling  prey  to  unscrupulous  actors  in  the  recruitment  process. Research show that recruitment-related abuses include: deception about the nature and conditions of work; retention of passports; illegal wage deductions; debt bondage linked to repayment of recruitment fees; and, very commonly, charging of exorbitant recruitment-related costs and fees.

Resort to irregular means of crossing borders for work is also prevalent. In Thailand, which hosts “some 2,877,000 documented migrant workers” as of 2018 from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos and has memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with these countries governing labor migration,⁸

38 per cent of the surveyed migrant workers [from the three countries] entered Thailand through the official channels, i.e., the MOU mechanism (36 per cent) [and] the border employment regulation (2 per cent). The rest entered the country irregularly.

The ILO has pointed out that the “costs and fees related to the recruitment of migrant workers should not be paid by the worker” in line with SDGs Indicator 10.7.1 on recruitment cost.⁹

An ILO survey of workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos done in 2018 and published in early 2020 provides some details on the employment situation:¹⁰

Survey respondents reported benefiting from a very limited number of labour rights. None or almost none reported having the ability to join a union, have severance pay, or have (for women) paid maternity leave. Only a small share, about one in ten, have paid annual leave, paid holidays, and paid sick leave. Only 36 per cent kept their ID documents, and slightly less than one in four reported being paid at least the minimum wage.

ASEAN Problem

In 2017, the United Nations estimated that out of a total of “9.7 million” “international migrants” working in Southeast Asia, “nearly 6.9 million” are Southeast Asian workers.¹¹ 2015 data show that “Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand [were] destinations for 91 per cent” of the Southeast Asian migrant workers.¹² On the other hand, “the Philippines, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Lao PDR are net-sending countries.”¹³

Member-states of ASEAN have commitments to address the labor migration issue under the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, 2007 (Cebu Declaration) and the ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, 2017.

Additionally, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (2012)¹⁴ provides that the “rights of … migrant workers … are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” (Article 4)

Two other ASEAN documents (ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and ASEAN Guidelines for Corporate Social Responsibilities on Labour) alongside “global frameworks especially Sustainable Development Goals and the … Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration”¹⁵ are part of the ASEAN framework on labor migration.

Migrant Workers Rights and the ASEAN Consensus

The ASEAN Consensus is set against the general non-ratification by ASEAN member-states of three ILO conventions¹⁶ related to migrant workers (No. 97, Migration for Employment Convention [Revised], 1949; No. 143, the Migrant Workers [Supplementary Provisions] Convention, 1975; and No. 181, the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997) with only the Philippines ratifying two of them, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families [1990] that only the Philippines and Indonesia ratified.

These international conventions provide more rights and obligations than those provided in the ASEAN Consensus (see Annex A).

A meaningful implementation of the ASEAN Consensus at the national level requires support from existing domestic laws, regulations, and policies that affect the migrant workers. A civil society baseline study of the existing laws, regulations, and policies is a good start in this direction.¹⁷

Finally, concern about compliance by ASEAN member-states with their commitment under the ASEAN Consensus arises since it is not a treaty and has no sanction against member-states that fail to respect and protect the rights it provides.¹⁸

Implementing the ASEAN Consensus

The key ASEAN body leading the implementation of these instruments is the ASEAN Committee on the Implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers (ACMW). A range of regional partners are involved in migration governance, including the ASEAN Confederation of Employers (ACE), ASEAN Trade Union Council (ATUC), and the Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers (TFAMW).¹⁹

To implement the 2007 Cebu Declaration, ASEAN established in 2009 the ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML) which “brings together key stakeholders in labour migration… [namely,] … government, employers’ and workers’ organizations ? as well as the ASEAN Secretariat, civil society and international organizations.”20 AFML holds its annual forum as part of the ACMW Work Plan.²¹

Concrete measures that would protect the migrant workers from exploitation and abuse have been recommended by AFML since 2010, including the following:²²

1. Promote effective recruitment practices and regulation;
2. Enhance policy on and protection of migrant workers through data sharing, and adequate access to the legal and judicial system during employment, including effective complaint mechanism;
3. Improve awareness and information services to protect the rights of migrant workers and to promote understanding, rights and dignity of migrant workers in countries of destination;
4. Strengthen return and reintegration programs and develop sustainable alternatives in countries of origin;
5. Strengthen social protection for migrant workers;
6. Work towards achieving decent work for domestic workers; and
7. Use digitalization to promote decent work for migrant workers.

On the other hand, Southeast Asian non-governmental organizations came up in 2018 with a detailed set of recommendations on the implementation of the ASEAN Consensus.The civil society organizations can use their recommendations in lobbying the ASEAN member-states on implementing the ASEAN Consensus.23

Achieving SDGs and ASEAN

A study by the United Nations ESCAP reveals that the realization of SDG 8 in Southeast Asia in 2018 had regressed since 2000, while that of SDG 10 was unclear due to insufficient data. Additionally, the realization of SDG 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions) was also unclear due to insufficient data.24 In this context, the faithful implementation of the ASEAN instruments related to migrant workers, despite their limitations, would have a significant impact on the achievement of the SDGs in the subregion.

The existing AFML-proposed concrete measures, and those of other stakeholders,25 should push the ASEAN member-states to seriously fulfil their SDGs commitment by protecting the rights of migrant workers.

Annex A.    Rights of Migrant Workers and Obligations of States

ASEAN Consensus (2017)

Jefferson R. Plantilla is the Chief Researcher of HURIGHTS OSAKA

For further information, please contact HURIGHTS OSAKA.

Endnotes
1    For the components of fair migration principle, see “Box 1. Fair migration agenda”  in International Labour Organization (ILO), Promoting Decent Work for Migrant Workers, Thirteenth Coordination Meeting On International Migration, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Secretariat, New York, 12-13 February 2015, page 4, www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/events/coordination/13/documents/backgrounddocs/GFMD_ILO_Discussion%20Paper_Promoting%20Decent%20Work%20for%20MWs.pdf.
2    “Relevant SDG Targets related to Labour Migration,” ILO, www.ilo.org/global/topics/dw4sd/themes/migration/WCMS_558577/lang--en/index.htm:
-    8.8 Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment, and
-    10.7 Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies.
3    For more information, see "Issue briefs," ILO, April 2020, www.ilo.org/asia/publications/issue-briefs/lang--en/index.htm.
4    TRIANGLE in ASEAN, International Labour Organization, www.ilo.org/asia/projects/WCMS_428584/lang--en/index.htm.
5    Ibid.
6    The future of work and migration, Thematic background paper for the 12th ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML), International Labour Organization 2019, page 7. Full report available at www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_733923.pdf.
7    The future of work and migration, ibid., page 19.
8    Recruitment fees and related costs: What migrant workers from Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Myanmar pay to work in Thailand, International Labour Organization 2020, pages xiii and 81, www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_740400.pdf.
9    Recruitment fees and related costs, International Labour Organization, ibid., page xiii.
10    Ibid., page xvi.
11    The future of work and migration, op. cit., page 6.
12    Marius Olivier, Social protection for migrant workers in ASEAN: Developments, challenges, and prospects, International Labour Organization, 2018, page 23. Full report available at www.social-protection.org/gimi/RessourcePDF.action?id=55654.
13    TRIANGLE in ASEAN Quarterly Briefing Note (October?December 2019), www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/genericdocument/wcms_735103.pdf.
14    ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, full text available at https://asean.org/asean-human-rights-declaration/.
15    “ASEAN moves forward on migrant workers’ safety and well-being,” ASEAN, https://asean.org/asean-moves-forward-migrant-workers-safety-well/.
16    See page 19, Fair Migration - Setting an ILO Agenda, ILO, 2014, www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_242879.pdf.
17    See Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) Indonesia, Migrant Workers’ Rights in ASEAN Region: A Baseline Study, 2018, Jakarta, available at https://hrwg.org/2019/01/14/migrant-workers-rights-in-asean-region-a-baseline-study/.
18    See PROJECT REPORT - “Regional CSOs Consultation Meeting on the Implementation of ASEAN Consensus on the Rights of Migrant Workers,” pages 14-19. Full text of the document available at www.spf.org/global-image/units/upfiles/51281-1-20181115134539_b5becf9f38f491.pdf.
19    TRIANGLE in ASEAN Quarterly Briefing Note, op. cit.
20    See "Participants to the AFML," The ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML), Background information booklet (4th edition), International Labour Organization 2019, pages 3-4, www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_733912.pdf.
21    The ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML), Background information booklet, ibid., page 1.
22    Ibid., pages 13-49.
23    See recommendations of the Southeast Asian civil society on adoption of a legally binding treaty on the rights of migrant workers, “Regional Civil Society Recommendations on the Implementation of the 2017 ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers,” Annex 3, PROJECT REPORT - “Regional CSOs Consultation Meeting on the Implementation of ASEAN Consensus on the Rights of Migrant Workers,” ibid., pages 14-19.
24    See ANNEX 1 - FIGURES ON SDG PROGRESS ACROSS ASIA-PACIFIC BY SUBREGION, Asia and the Pacific, SDG Progress Report 2019, United Nations ESCAP, 24 May 2019, page 35, www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/Annex1_Asia-Pacific_SDG_Progress_Report2019.pdf.
25    “Regional Civil Society Recommendations on the Implementation of the 2017 ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers,” op. cit.

Violence against women is a scourge of society. Laws tolerate violence against women by failing to consider it a crime or by punishing it lightly. Society tolerates this violence by being silent about it.

Women and their organizations demand that any form of violence against women (or any member of the family) be ended in practice and in law. They question the social and cultural bases of violence against women. They urge the public to discuss the effects of such violence on women and members of the family. They seek the understanding of people on the need to take action, or to improve measures, against it. They lobby for law reform—to enact new laws, or revise or repeal old laws—in order to appropriately penalize such violence.

Decades earlier, the United Nations called on countries to make violence against women a criminal offense and to take active steps to prevent its occurrence. At present, there is still much work to do to eliminate violence against women.
Violence against women, as a grave human rights violation, has to be addressed at various levels. There must be initiatives directed at the national government as much as the local government. There must likewise be efforts at dialoguing with people in the community regarding socio-cultural norms and practices, and other causes of this violence.
While women and their organizations have taken the lead in eliminating this violence, the pursuit of this difficult task needs the involvement of the society as a whole.
 

As an introduction to my essay, I would like to emphasize that Kazakhstan may have all the symptoms of the “shadow pandemic”¹ of hate or distrust for women (misogyny) similar to other Central Asian and other post-Soviet “-Stans” (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). However, it would be remiss to treat its case as a blueprint for every Central Asian country. As someone who was born and raised in Kazakhstan, I understand my privilege of being from, what is often described, one of the most stable and prosperous authoritarian countries in the subregion. I would also like to highlight that, as tempting as it may seem, judging a whole subregion based on one country would always be fallacious. Thus, I offer my essay to anyone who wishes to learn more about what is happening to women in Kazakhstan. I also would like anyone who reads it and is not from Central Asia to keep in mind that contexts shift and to treat it as one of many narratives of Central Asian women who deserve to be heard and understood.

Violence against Kazakhstani Women

Violence against women (VAW) is globally recognized as a violation of fundamental human rights. Progress towards dismantling patriarchy and achieving gender equality is not a step-by-step fight where first comes eradication of violence followed by some “minor” problems such as equal pay and representation. Gender equality can only be achieved by fighting for all women’s rights at the same time. However, gender-based violence continues to be a particularly cruel and pervasive issue that plagues every society today.

Some even say that it seems to be getting worse and hopeless given the number of stories that are being shared through social media today about women falling victims to domestic abuse, rape, and murder. However, as I would argue, what we are seeing in Kazakhstan today is not necessarily an indicator of hopelessness. On the opposite, it could be that for the first time in decades, there is more hope than there ever was before.

In my research on the ways through which the nationalist rhetoric in Kazakhstan normalizes gender-based violence with “re-traditionalization,”² a discourse analysis of the social media content on Instagram and Facebook demonstrated a dangerous pervasiveness of victim-blaming and equating misogynistic practices with core Kazakh cultural values. Kazakhstan, similar to many other countries in the world right now, has not been immune from the rise of right-wing nationalism that utilizes women’s bodies as markers of cultural and ethnic borders. Kazakhstani women who share their stories of abuse and trauma are continuously gaslighted and their innocence is questioned in the public discourse, while proper legal punishment is rarely meted out.

One of the most controversial recent cases is the 2018 Talgo case about the rape of a woman by two train conductors in her own train compartment during a night trip.³ The details of what happened that night and the woman’s behavior including drinking habits, age, and intellectual abilities have become a topic of avid discussion. The victim has been blamed for such irrelevant things as not closing the door of her compartment and talking to the conductors hours prior to the attack. This case serves as a good example of how gender-based violence is perpetuated among people by discussing this violence in connection with everyday conversations on the roles of women in society. The Kazakhstani government view on this issue seems to myopically focus on women as mothers, wives, and daughters rather than fully equal members of the society, which is what the Constitution of the country provides at least on paper. For instance, the high divorce rate continues to be discussed as a gender equality issue that needs to be overcome with multimillion budgets and resources propagating “traditional ethnocultural values,” which imply heteronormative⁴ gender roles of a man being the breadwinner and the leader of the family and a woman being a malleable figure whose main purpose is to raise children. There is no critical discussion of the reasons why so many women choose to leave their marriage and the relation of the divorce rate to a high rate of domestic abuse in the country.

According to UN Women, about four hundred women in Kazakhstan are killed annually as a result of domestic abuse.⁵ In 2017, Nursultan Nazarbayev, then President of the country and holder of the title “Leader of the Nation,” decriminalized domestic violence and made it a mere administrative offense, which effectively contributed to the casualization of domestic abuse.⁶


Policy against VAW

2019 was a tumultuous year for Kazakhstan with the transition of power from Nazarbayev to Qasym-Zhomart Toqayev and a growing unrest among the public spilling into peaceful protests and a surge of political and civil activism.⁷

VAW seems to have become one of the front issues in the turning point of independent Kazakhstan’s history. For the first time in years, President Toqayev addressed rape as an important problem and called for more stringent and thorough punishment for it. However, the progress so far seems to be artificial in nature. Not long after his condemnation of rape of women (which also instilled heteronormativity⁸ on the issue), President Toqayev signed a new law with a provision that changed the previous penalty of fine to a simple warning for first-time domestic violence abusers. With such continuous decriminalization of gender-based violence, the Kazakhstani government appears to be going backward by reforming existing laws to offer even less protection for women.

However, I believe that the most important thing to understand here is that the actual situation of women in Kazakhstan lies beneath the laws and policies. These laws and policies can only account for so much that is happening in a country with rampant corruption and constant crackdowns on civil liberties. On paper, Kazakhstan has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and has continuously pledged allegiance to the goal of achieving gender equality in the country.⁹ This has helped Nursultan Nazarbayev and his authoritarian regime to window dress the country as an appropriate ally and partner of liberal democracies of the West.

While the legal protection of victims of gender-based violence grows weaker, a more important issue is the underreporting and misunderstanding of such violence. It has become normal in the daily life of Kazakhstani people to hear misogynistic jokes and “vines”¹⁰ that depict survivors of gender-based violence as hysterical, conniving or both.

Movement for Change

A crucial element that lies beneath the surface is a rapidly growing feminist movement in the country. It is important to note here that while social media has been disseminating in recent years ideas and information on gender equality from various sources, Kazakhstani feminist activists have been working for decades away from the limelight. They have been helping other women and advocating for gender equality by establishing non-profit advocacy organizations, opening makeshift shelters and crisis centers, etc. Recently, social media has been providing an unprecedented level of exposure to feminist organizations and activists in Kazakhstan that keeps the public conversation about violence against women going. From art projects to petitions and marches, women in Kazakhstan are taking more virtual and physical public spaces than ever before. This novel exposure of the extent of suffering from VAW in Kazakhstan may be disheartening to many and give a feeling of hopelessness. However, in the past year, I have personally noticed more and more people actively engaging with questions of feminism, gender equality, and violence against women in different forms and degrees of involvement. Education about these issues takes place in real-life meet-ups, press conferences, social media posts, online lectures and panels, and articles in online magazines. It is still sad to see that the burden of raising awareness about violence against women lays on the shoulders of women themselves. But the women in Kazakhstan have been turning this burden into a momentum of change.

The first International Women’s Day feminist march was held in Almaty on 8 March 2020 with more than two hundred participants.¹¹ Before that, on 28 September 2019, a peaceful feminist protest against gender-based violence was organized in the same city for the first time in the history of independent Kazakhstan.¹²

 

Kazakhstani women marching against VAW and sexism on 8 March 2020 in Almaty Kazakhstan. (Photo: Yuna Korostelyova, Vlast.kz)