WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 550, September 19, 2008 KAZAK LEADER HINTS AT POLITICAL CHANGE President promises multi-party parliament but not just yet. By Daur Dosybiev in Almaty
NUCLEAR FALLOUT PERSISTS IN KAZAKSTAN Effects of Soviet atom bomb blasts still affecting population around disused test site. By Elmira Gabidullina in Almaty SPECIAL REPORT: TAJIK CHILDREN LABOUR TO FEED FAMILIES Some argue that in a country as poor as this, people have no option but to send children out to work. By Aslibegim Manzarshoeva in Dushanbe **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** IWPR COMMENT section available at http://iwpr.net/comment.html BIANNUAL REVIEW IWPR CENTRAL ASIA: Report available at: http://www.iwpr.net/?p=rca&s=f&o=344218&apc_state=henprca SAHAR JOURNALISTS ASSISTANCE FUND: To find out more or donate please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/sahar.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA RSS: http://www.iwpr.net/en/rca/rss.xml RECEIVE FROM IWPR: Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of free electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p GIVE TO IWPR: IWPR is wholly dependent upon grants and donations. For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** KAZAK LEADER HINTS AT POLITICAL CHANGE President promises multi-party parliament but not just yet. By Daur Dosybiev in Almaty Kazakstan appears to be moving towards a more pluralist political system, judging by recent remarks made by President Nursultan Nazarbaev. But local analysts tell IWPR that plans to get more parties into parliament are unlikely to make the country more democratic and are little more than a gesture to its partners in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation, OSCE, which Kazakstan is due to chair in 2010. Addressing the annual opening of parliament on September 2, President Nazarbaev said the country needed a legal mechanism whereby parliament is constituted with no fewer than two parties, even if one of them does not break the seven-per cent hurdle. In the August 2007 legislative election, all the seats in the Majilis or lower house of parliament were won by Nur Otan, the presidents own party. None of the six other parties that fielded candidates was deemed to have crossed the seven per cent threshold set for representation. At the time the trend was towards consolidation in the year leading up to the polls, Nur Otan swallowed up three smaller parties. The August election was criticised by the international community, at a time when Kazakstans bid to chair the OSCE was hanging in the balance. OSCE members pressed for a stronger commitment to reform, and last November they granted the Kazaks the OSCE chair not in 2009, as it had requested, but a year later. With talk of political reform coming so hard on the heels of last years vote, the obvious conclusion might be that the president is considering an early election to install a new two-party legislature. However, he immediately scotched this idea. There has recently been more and more talk that some kind of early election to the Majilis [parliament] might be held. The current membership was elected legitimately by the nation and is doing an effective job, so there are neither legal nor political reasons for holding an early election, he said in his speech to the assembly. The election will take place at the time provided for in the constitution, in other words in 2012. Political analysts interviewed by IWPR see a clear contradiction between calling for political reform but then implying there is no real urgency. They believe Nazarbaev, who has been in power since Soviet times, is not planning to build a democracy any time soon. (See OSCE Pressure Unlikely to Prompt Kazak Reforms, RCA No. 534, 28-Feb-08.) Analyst Oleg Sidorov says the presidents statement is merely a sop to the OSCE. The idea of creating a two-party was only to be expected given that we are to chair the OSCE, he said. Amirjan Kosanov, deputy chairman of the National Social Democratic Party, which came second in last years ballot but failed to break the seven per cent barrier, exoressed guarded optimism about Nazarbaevs statement. The fact that the authorities aspire to move away from a one-party parliament is in itself progress; its a step forward, he told IWPR. But he said the problems seen in last years election should serve as a warning, and noted that in his recent speech, Nazarbaev was careful to stress that Nur Otan was fairly elected. If the election had been genuine and fair, if theyd adhered to generally-accepted international election standards, Nur Otan would certainly never have got that kind of percentage at the polls, said Kosanov. The presidents party swept the board with 88 per cent of the vote. There is some speculation about what exactly the president means by a second party. Does he mean only that the seven per cent requirement could be scrapped if the runner-up one of the existing opposition parties failed to meet it? Some analysts believe he is hinting at something else the creation of yet another in the long line of pro-regime parties that have appeared over the last decade-and-a-half. One way to do this, said Sidorov, would be to carve out a new party from the existing Nur Otan. The accelerated process of mergers that preceded the last ballot saw Nur Otan absorb three other political formations including Asar, a party set up and led by the presidents daughter, Dariga Nazarbaeva. Re-establishing Asar would create an alternative party with a more liberal outlook but without being part of the opposition. Apart from losing her political party, Nazarbaeva has had other troubles over the past year or so. She divorced her husband Rahat Aliev after he fell from grace; he was given a 20-year jail sentence in absentia this March. The couple also lost many of their considerable business interests in Kazakstan. Many analysts have written Nazarbaeva off as a politician at one time she was tipped to succeed her father as president but political commentator Eduard Poletaev believes the prospect of a second parliamentary party could offer her a way back. Poletaev, who is editor-in-chief of the Mir Yevrazii political magazine, also suggests another way in which a new party could be engineered into existence. Nur Otan holds all 98 of the seats in parliament reserved for parties, but under constitutional changes pushed through in summer 2007, another nine seats go automatically to an institution called the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakstan. This is a consultative body which works for the president and is supposed to monitor ethnic problems and promote harmony among Kazakstans various communities. According to Poletaev, The Assembly of Peoples of Kazakstan could be reformed thats your second party. However Nazarbaev decides to play it, one thing is clear is still in charge, directing both the nature and pace of any political change. His remark that new elections are not in the offing recalls previous occasions where he has floated one idea and then done something else, keeping both his allies and his opponents on their toes. If he were to change tack and go for an early election after all, the opposition would be caught unawares. Weve already seen cases like this where the leadership said everything was going to plan and then all of a sudden something happens for which neither the public nor the opposition parties are prepared, said Sidorov. Nazarbaevs own presidency is a prime example of this. When his current term in office runs out in 2012, he should technically step down and he has in the past suggested he might do so. But in May 2007, the Kazakstan parliament passed a constitutional amendment to allow him, and him alone, to stand for presidential office as many times as he wants. Daur Dosybiev is an independent journalist in Almaty. NUCLEAR FALLOUT PERSISTS IN KAZAKSTAN Effects of Soviet atom bomb blasts still affecting population around disused test site. By Elmira Gabidullina in Almaty Kazakstans nuclear test zone has lain deserted for the last 20 years and largely forgotten by the outside world, but experts say radiation will continue to be a health risk until the huge site is cleaned up thoroughly. The testing ground was closed for use in 1991. This month, the international Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organisation is running a series of trials at the Semipalatinsk site to test equipment that can identify and give the location of nuclear explosions. Semipalatinsk was clearly chosen for the experiments because some of the testing can be done for real, for example checking radiation levels in the soil and atmosphere. In Kazakstan, it is also being seen as a tribute to the countrys decision, soon after it became independent, to become the first state to voluntarily renounce nuclear weapons. The persistence of high background radiation means the legacy of Semipalatinsk lives on. Academic researchers and pressure groups say the incidence of cancer, congenital defects, retarded development and psychiatric disorders in the surrounding are much higher than in other parts of Kazakstan. According to the cancer centre for East Kazakstan Region, the disease occurs 10 to 15 per cent more frequently than the national average, with a high proportion of cases falling within the 50-60 year-old age bracket, in other words people who would have been around when nuclear testing was taking place. Above-ground blasts ended in 1962, but underground testing continued for many years until the programme ended in 1989. Some 1.7 million people are believed to have health problems caused by exposure to radiation. These days, the radiation is at much lower levels. But experts warn that low doses and constant exposure can show up as genetic malformations. This is likely to persist until a complete clean-up is conducted over this vast area. Aytkoja Bigaliev, director of the Ecology Institute at Kazakstans Al-Farabi University and a long-time researcher of the problem, says that the key task is to curb radiation in soil and water. Subsoil water carries away and distributes radioactive material left inside the now derelict underground shafts where explosions were carried out. In time, this material finds its way into the food chain and affects both animals and humans Matters are made worse, said Bigaliev, by the fact that little action is taken to stop people pasturing their livestock, collecting salt and mining coal on polluted land. This results in radioactive substances being transported to other parts of Kazakstan. He blames the problem on a mixture of popular ignorance and a lack of laws specifically outlawing such practices. Radiation levels on the polygon are 1,000 times the permissible amount, he said. They put their livestock out to pasture there without let or hindrance, and the meat and milk then ends up on peoples tables. Bakhyt Tumenova, director of the non-government pressure group on health matters called Aman Saulik, says one of the problems is that no one has really kept track of how people have been affected. Its of pressing importance to determine the real impact of radiation, she said. Initially they determined the damage level by the simple principle of [looking at people] directly affected by radiation. But thats inaccurate. Tumenov said that by contrast, Japan had used a reconstructive model which looked at the continuing effects of initial radiation and allowed a more accurate estimate of future problems. As well as local residents, soldiers stationed near where the nuclear blasts took place in Soviet times say they are still living with the effects. Back in 1962, Melgis Metov was a young conscript based four kilometres outside the testing zone or polygon as it is known here. His job was to prepare the monitoring equipment and take meter readings immediately after the blast. In the year he spent there, 19 tests took place 18 of them under ground and the other the even more dangerous type where the bomb was set off above ground. The polygon has cursed my life, said Metov, who lives in Kazakstans second city and heads a committee of army veterans who served in high risk units. He and the three other soldiers detailed for the job had only basic chemical-warfare kit a gas mask and a protective cape. Within a couple of months they were suffering splitting headaches and exhaustion, and discoloured spots appeared on their skin. On doctors orders, they were transferred to another role elsewhere, but Metov continued to have the headaches. By the time he was 30, he had a nervous tic and was losing his sight he now has limited vision in only one eye. He had to retire early, and says, I might have achieved more than I did in life if the polygon hadnt come my way. Metovs commission has tried over many years to get the authorities to recognise the particular risks the nuclear troops underwent. He pulls out a fat file of letters from various official institutions turning down the veterans request on the grounds that they are not eligible. Kazakstan has a law dating from 1992 which sets out the benefits available to people who suffered as a result of nuclear testing. But strangely, it does not appear to cover soldiers who served in and around the test site. Elmira Gabidullina is a freelance journalist in Almaty. SPECIAL REPORT: TAJIK CHILDREN LABOUR TO FEED FAMILIES Some argue that in a country as poor as this, people have no option but to send children out to work. By Aslibegim Manzarshoeva in Dushanbe Rustam has to get up at dawn to drive the hundreds of animals under his care out to pasture. At the age of 14, he should be in school, but he has little other choice he is one of the main breadwinners for a family of nine. It is a familiar story in Tajikistan, where children in rural areas routinely have to work alongside adults to keep their households afloat. Increasingly, urban children from poor families are also doing manual jobs instead of going to school, raising concerns about what future these uneducated adolescents will have in a grim employment situation. The young shepherd lives in Faizabad, a district some 50 kilometres east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe, and looks after the sheep, goats and cattle belonging to all 160 households in the village of Dubeda. It is a long trek up to the mountain pastures one-and-a-half hours each way and Rustam stays there with the herd until seven in the evening. To sustain him through the day, he usually only has some bread, tea and chakka, the local soured milk, and occasionally cooks some potatoes or rice. He earns a few pennies a month for each animal in the herd, but if one of them dies the owner will demand around 100 dollars in compensation. Rustams father used to be a shepherd himself, but has been partially disabled since breaking a leg in a bad fall in the mountains. These days he earns money at a local market by selling vegetables from his garden and chakka from the familys cow. His wife, Rustams mother, died four year ago. Rustams elder brother also lives in the family home with his wife and child, as does his unmarried sister. They all work on the family plot, but they still need the extra income from the Rustams shepherding work. Recently, Rustam has been joined by his younger brother, Farrukh, who is only 12 but comes along to help out with the animals. Sometimes they take turns last year Rustam hardly went to school at all, but this year he and his brother alternate, one going to classes while the other tends the flock. POVERTY, PARENTS ABSENCE DRIVES CHILDREN TO WORK Across Tajikistan, thousands of children like Rustam and Farrukh are missing out on an education. On September 1, the start of the new school year, around 1.7 million children entered primary education. By the time they reach adolescence, many will be dropping out to act as porters at markets, work in the fields and do other manual jobs. Others skip classes only at specific times of year, such as the autumn cotton harvest when everyone goes off to help. A UNICEF study published last year said around 200,000 children out of aged five to 15 were working in some capacity, and of those, 20,000 did not go to school at all. Sabohat Alimova of the Aurora group, an association dealing with adolescents, reports that 3,000 cases of child labour were identified in the capital alone so far this year. By contrast, the education ministry insists a mere 700 children nationwide failed to attend school last year. Farming families have traditionally been large, and even in Soviet times the children would help out on the land. However, child labour became more prevalent during the economic collapse and civil war that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early Nineties. Local observers say the problem really took off in 1994 and 1995, at the same time as many Tajiks started going abroad to find work. As large numbers of fathers and elder sons left to look for jobs in Russia and other countries, wives and younger children had to step in to do the work. Officials put a figure of 500-800,000 on the number of Tajikistan nationals working abroad, but other experts say there are at least 1.5 million, out of a population of just seven million There is a close correlation between this absent labour force and the number of children now in work. The local coordinator of an International Labour Organisation, ILO, programme to reduce the worst forms of child labour, Muhaye Hosabekova, said, Eighty per cent of children in work are either in one-parent-families, or a parent has become a labour migrant. The most terrible thing is that labour migration divides families, and society begins with the family. RISE IN URBAN CHILD LABOUR Tajikistans Labour Code prohibits the hiring of minors, defined as anyone under the age of 15. The legislation does, however, allow 14-year-olds to do part-time jobs outside school time and with the consent of a parent or guardian. Tajikistan has also ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, and the International Labour Organisation resolution calling for the elimination of child labour. (IWPR reported last year on a case in which prosecutors looked into the practice of employing minors to work on cotton farms see Tajik Prosecutors Investigate Child Labour Claims, RCA No. 501, 13-Jul-07.) Even so, children at work are a common sight in Tajikistan. While children of both sexes help their families out in the countryside, the emergence of urban workers most of them boys is a more recent phenomenon. Young lads, some of them street children, can be seen pushing heavy barrows around the markets, washing cars by the roadside, changing banknotes into smaller denominations, and corralling passengers into the shared minibus taxis which have all but replaced other forms of public transport. Many of the kids hanging around markets to earn tiny sums of money have come into town from the surrounding countryside, where their fathers may have joined the exodus to Russia. They live on the street and are often near-illiterate because they have missed so much school time. Just 14, Anvar has not been to school in the last two years. Instead, he is a conductor on a minibus taxi, collecting fares for the driver. He explains that he has no time for studying as he has to support his mother, elder sister and two younger brothers. His father went off to Russia three years ago. The first year he sent money home regularly but that has dried up since then and returning migrants say the man has a new wife and a baby. Like many boys forced to take jobs, Anvar has a strong sense of his responsibilities as the senior male breadwinner in the household. Im salting away half my earnings so that my sister can continue her studies once she finishes school in a years time, he told IWPR. Then she should become a nurse so she can cure Mum, whos been ill a lot since she heard our father got married. Getting his sister into the medical institute will probably take more money than Anvar can save, but he reckons he has fixed it with a lecturer from the college he once had as a passenger in the taxi. The extent of child labour is a matter of concern for many experts, although some argue that widespread poverty and the limited expenditure the government can afford mean families have few other viable options. Many parents encourage their children to work because it will bring in cash, said Umed Rahimdodov, director of the Institute for Labour and Social Protection in Dushanbe. In doing so, they are violating their own childrens rights. FEW STATE RESOURCES TO SUPPORT VULNERABLE FAMILIES The government pays benefits to vulnerable groups such as large families and households where one of the parents is dead. But the monthly payment of 20 somonis is equivalent to 20 loaves of the local unleavened bread. Families with more than two children in school also an allowance, but this comes to no more than 40 somonis per child annually. Tajikistan is Central Asias poorest country and the government struggles to raise tax revenue, so there is little available to provide benefits in cash or in kind, such as school uniforms and lunches. According to Alimova, it is always economic factors that prompt children go out to work and miss out on education. If the parents cannot feed themselves or their children, if a child cannot go to school he or she will go to work. Employers have an interest in taking children on as they can pay them a pittance and avoid issuing a contract, she said. Yet international documents ratified by Tajikistan enshrine the childs right to life and education. When children work instead of studying, it is a violation of their rights. There are child protection agencies in every town and district of the country, but they have few staff and are poorly paid. Manzura Salomova, the secretary for childrens affairs at the Dushanbe city administration, says her office does identify child labour cases but lacks the legal tools to stop minors working. In the first six months of 2008, we conducted raids which revealed 623 [working] children, mostly from various other parts of the country. We have a discussion with them, but then we let them go because we dont have the right to hold them for longer. We call in their parents and sometimes fine them, but it isnt a large penalty and they can easily pay it. Then the children carry on working anyway. A NECESSARY EVIL? Some argue that there is little sense in trying to stop children working given the harsh realities of life in Tajikistan. Firuz Saidov, an analyst with the Centre for Strategic Studies, an institute attached to the presidential administration, says many parents cannot do without the extra income. Tajikistan has its own specific features, he argued. If children work the family land or help the parents on the allotment and earn some money, its because they have no other option, and no one should ban them from doing so. That kind of work cannot be considered child labour exploitation. Many parents do not see much point in educating their children, especially since schools are often not up to scratch and the outlays for uniforms and books can be high. Saodat, a 32-year-old with two children in school, said, Many schools dont have enough teachers, and classes run only two hours a day instead of six. In cases like that, what can the children get out of school will they get the education they need at all? Yet many young people caught up in work do place a high value on education. Firuz is now working legally, but when he started two years ago, he was just 14. He earns four or five dollars a day pushing a barrow found the Shohmansur market in Dushanbe, but he would love to go back to school. Realistically, the chances of him doing that are slim he is far behind with his education and reads and writes poorly, and in any case feels he cannot abandon his three younger siblings. His mother has a job at a cotton mill, but her wages are low and are often issued only after several months delay. Some of Firuzs friends have managed to keep attending school when they can, but they feel they have little chance of going to university. NO EASY SOLUTIONS The risks for Tajikistan are high the once universal education provided by the Soviet authorities is now badly underfunded, and the thousands of teenagers who drop out will have few opportunities in an already hard-pressed economy. With no prospect of a major economic upturn in sight, child labour looks likely to persist. UNICEFs Hosabekova believes economic assistance might work. Their mothers should be offered alternatives to child labour, for example small grants and microcredits on good terms to allow them to start up a business and warn money, she said. Alimova thinks parents should have the consequences of their actions spelled out to them, saying, Doctors and psychologists should explain to them the negative effects that labour has on childrens physical health, mental and spiritual development, and whole future. One recurring theme in IWPRs interviews with working children is that they are often prepared to sacrifice their own education for the sake of their brothers and sisters. Rustam, the young shepherd, is keen for his brother not to miss out as he has done, and plans to end the current arrangement where they swap around the roles of schoolboy and shepherd. Im probably going to dump school altogether, he said. My little brother is doing well at school, but if we go on like this and he starts doing badly, he might not make a success of it. Rustams solution is to join the exodus of migrants as soon as he can. Once I get a passport, Ill go off to Russia with my big brother, he said confidently. First well make some money and get our sister married off, then Ill buy a car and drive passengers around. (The names of children interviewed for this story have been changed.) Aslibegim Manzarshoeva is an IWPR-trained journalist in Tajikistan. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. IWPR's Reporting Central Asia is supported by the UK Community Fund. The service is published online in English and Russian. The opinions expressed in Reporting Central Asia are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. 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