In the recent time the domestic violence in Tajikistan has been the topic on which they often write and talk about. To find out the stories of women abuse by relatives, you don’t even need to go and question people, just enter Internet.
Madina M :
Husband raped and beat with a stool
On September 2013, when Madina M. was 18 years old, her parents married her to Sheroz Sh. from a neighboring village in the Sogd region in northern part of Tajikistan. After the wedding, she moved to her husband's house. After some time, Sheroz began to scream at his wife for any reason, beat her with his fists, and at the same time categorically forbade Madina to communicate with her parents. From time to time after the beating, Sheroz raped his wife.
Once, after a call from Madina’s father, where he congratulated her on her birthday, her husband got angry and the next day drove her back to her parents. Madina's family reconciled the couple beware of shame and condemnation of their neighbors because of a divorce. After that beatings are continued, and became almost daily.
One day, Sheroz beat Madina for a dressed festive skullcap when she went to visit her sister in the hospital. The husband and his mother drove the daughter-in-law out of the house. When she returned for things, Sheroz beat his wife with a stool and a poker. Madina lost consciousness and went to the hospital, but then returned to her husband's home again.
On February 2014, Sheroz again beat his wife with a stool, which caused the woman to rupture the left ovary. After this incident, she realized that her husband would kill her sooner or later and, with the assistance of a lawyer, filed a statement about the beating to the prosecutor's office of the Sughd region
Friends and relatives advised against to file complaint into court, told her that she was to blame. But the woman decided to go all the way. Sheroz was sentenced to three years of imprisonment under part two of Article 117 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan (“Torture”). This term was reduced to one year by amnesty.
Today Madina lives with her parents, tries to earn a living herself and dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Nigina:
How to Learn to Make Money
Nigina N. from Garm who married on 1997 a man whom she first saw at a wedding. She moved to her husband's, where lived his parents and two brothers with their wives and five children. Every year, her husband went to Russia for six to eight months to earn money. A few years later, the mother-in-law began to beat Nigina, claiming that there was too little space in the house, and Nigina had three children: "We couldn't feed so many mouths."
“I saw that a women's resource center opened in Garm and immediately went to them,” says Nigina.
- There they advised me to take courses on starting a small business, helped to start my studies in Dushanbe, where I could study marketing. My brother helped to collect about 7.5 thousand somoni for the annual course. ” During the interview, Nigina worked in an organization providing women with microloans.
Sabohat:
He could kill me several times!
In 2001, when Sabohat was 16 years old, her parents married her to a man from Chkalovsk (now Buston, Sogd region). Three days after moving to her husband, beatings and psychological bullying was started. Her husband wanted to show power and achieve unquestioning submission from his wife.“He could kill me so many times! Said Sabohat.
- Sometimes he made me jump on one leg and sing the national anthem of Tajikistan. Once I told him that he was talking too loudly and could wake up our newborn baby. After that, he kicked my head on wall with such force that I lost consciousness.
"Her husband’s parents told her that this was the fate of all women, she had to tolerate. After a while he began to beat children, once sliced Sabohat's leg with a knife.“
In November 2013, we had quarrel with him when he watched TV. He dragged me to the bathroom, shaved me all my hair. Then he led me out into the yard and locked her in the garage for two hours, then he wet me with dirty water, and told me to shut up. I was completely numb in the garage.
”After another beating, Sabohat wanted to kill herself but her 13-year-old son saved her. Soon her husband just kicked her out of the house. She wrote a statement to the police and the prosecutor’s office, but the prosecutor’s office closed the case for lack of evidence.
The local women's and family affairs committee also refused to help. Sabohat was provided psychological assistance and offered various training coursesIn the women's shelter in Khujand, so that she could get a profession and begin to build an independent life.
Rajabbi:
Husband forced her to commit suicide
18-year-old Rajabbi Khurshed tried to commit suicide in the summer of 2017, 40 days after the wedding. At the hospital, she said that her husband Zafar Pirov beat her, accusing her of not being a virgin.
19-A video with statements by Pirov himself was posted on the Internet. Rajabbi died in the hospital. A criminal case was opened against her husband under article 109 of the Criminal Code (“Incitement to Suicide”). Pirov was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Fariza: The mother-in-law and the brother-in-law brought to suicide
21-year-old Farizai Khujanazar, the mother of a one-year-old baby who was in her third month of pregnancy, committed suicide in her husband’s house on February 2018. Fariza repeatedly complained to her parents about abuse made by her husband's brother and mother. A criminal case for incitement for suicide was opened in respect of her mother-in-law and brother-in-law, however, human rights activists failed to find out whether it reached the court and what the sentence was.
Gulnoza:
Second wife or slave?
Gulnoza G. from Panjakent married in 2015, being second wife. She lived with her husband, his official wife and child in the same house and, according to her, was abused by her husband. Her husband promised to build a house for Gulnoza, but in fact refused food and clothing, treated her like a slave. After another beating, when her husband broke her arm and nearly killed her, she began to seek help and found out about one of the NGOs in Dushanbe. She escaped from there, unable to take her little son with her.
Zarafo:
“You are a Muslim: Make peace with it”
Zarafo Z. lived with her husband in Isfara, and periodically experienced domestic violence. In 2015, her husband beat her very severe only because that his mother that was at Russia on that time said that her relatives were visiting their house.
She accused his son on, about weakness that he unbridles his wife. Her husband beat Zarafo very severe that she began to choke with blood. The diagnosis in hospital was spleen rupture in three places but she hid from the doctors the real reason from doctors. Under the pressure of relatives she returns home and was beaten again.
Once again, once in the hospital, the attending physician, according to her, told her: “You are a Tajik, a Muslim. Go home and make peace with it. ”
In the end, Zarafo and her mother found a lawyer who, through the local prosecutor’s office, obtained the arrest of her husband, but by that time, irreparable harm had already been done to Zarafo’s health.
From the report of International organization on human rights Human Rights Watch - «Violence with every steps ». (2019 )