Bakhtier Abdujaborov: Providing Legal Access to Women in Tajikistan

Eliminating violence against women is not solely an issue for women - it's also men's work. This message inspired my NGO team when we had a talk with a representative of an American NGO working on domestic violence issues. This year, with the support of an Alumni Grants, we started a project on domestic violence prevention covering more areas of Sughd by implementing education campaign, legal consultation to needy families and helping people on individual cases. Our seminars and trainings since the beginning of the year have helped more than 100 people. One such instance are seminars that help women understand the norms of the Civic Code of Tajikistan, to know about the procedure of applying to legal bodies and interact with the public and government organizations when they face gender based violence.

Our seminars also focus on preventing the trafficking of women by partnering with crisis centers functioning throughout the Sughd region. We helped 2 women access services at the crisis center and to reintegrate in the society by attracting resources from other donor organizations.

On individual issues of women suffering from violence our lawyers helping to make applications to court and solving their problems like housing, property e.t.c. About 3 women had a support of project for protecting of their rights by using court mechanism. We helped one woman receive her owed pension of 150 somoni per months, her rights was ignored for many years by her ex-husband. The other case was helping to women to get into house and court made decision to allow women and her children enter her husband's house as she didn’t have housing.

We are continuing this project and assisting gender equality development and making contributions for the promotion of human rights.

The Public Organization Fund for Society Development is non-governmental organization (NGO) whose mission is directed at the promotion of human rights, the rule of law, and providing opportunities for socio-economic development to vulnerable people such as women under risk of violence, labor migrants, children and youth. The NGO has worked on women rights for more than 7 years and is a member of several coalitions and networks on gender equality issues and human rights of women.