To focus attention on protecting workers from Central Asian countries who are migrating abroad to earn their livelihoods, the Solidarity Center was part of a broad coalition that organized a high-level conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to coincide with UN World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. The two-day conference, which took place July 30 to 31, provided a forum for sharing best practices and strategies to combat forced labor, included representatives from regional and global representatives of civil society organizations, state institutions and organizations, trafficking experts and the U.S. government.
“Collaboration on labor protections can potentially ensure safer and fairer working conditions for everyone in the region,” says Solidarity Center Europe and Central Asia Regional Program Director Rudy Porter.
As a percentage of population, forced labor in Central Asia and Europe is the second highestin the world–estimated at more than 4 millionpeople. The U.S. Department of State’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons reportdetails forced labor across Central Asia, including in Kazakhstan, where debt-based coercion of migrant workers is reportedlyincreasing. Globally, there were almost 8 million international migrants from Central Asian countries by mid-year 2020, more than 60 percent of whom were in Russia. A Solidarity Center-supported survey of hundreds of Kyrgyz women migrant workers across 19 Russian cities in 2021 documented brutal conditions on the job for these women, including sexual violence.
The conference, “Strengthening National and International Partnerships in Combating Trafficking in Persons,” was co-organized with the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Kyrgyz Republic’s Parliament, the EU Mission, the U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan and global funder Winrock International. Also participating were Solidarity Center partner worker rights organizations Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights (KIBHR), Kyrgyzstan’s Insan-Leilek and Migrant Workers Union, and Uzbekistan’s Istiqbolli Avlod. The European Union, OSCE, UNODC and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cosponsored.
The Solidarity Center participated on a panel on countering forced labor through promotion of fundamental labor rights in the region and highlighted a finding from recently completed research* that almost 60 percent of Central Asian migrant workers surveyed do not know what forced labor is—which increases their vulnerability to unscrupulous employers or recruiters. Solidarity Center staff also used the panel as an opportunity to present recommendations emphasizing the role of labor inspectorates, unions and private and state recruitment agencies in combating forced labor.
The conference builds from a milestone convening the Solidarity Center organized in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, last year, where a joint regional action plan on combating forced labor and advancing worker rights was adopted by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan stakeholders, including government ministries and agencies, non-governmental and civil society sectors, and international organizations.
Forced labor is found increasingly in the private economy, in labor-intensive and under-regulated sectors such as construction, agriculture, fisheries, domestic work and mining, reports the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Worldwide, 28 million people were trapped in forced labor in 2021, a number that represents an increase of more than one-third in only five years. Globally, forced labor in the private economy is estimated to generate $236 billion in illegal profits per year, an increase of more than $64 billion since 2014.
The UN’s 2018 Global Compact on migration, which sets out a cooperative framework for achieving safe migration within a rights-based framework, includes a process for implementation andreviewof UN member states’ progress on the issue.
* Currently available in Russian; English translation forthcoming.
In Central Asia, the Solidarity Center partners with disability rights groups to promote inclusive employment, including through inclusive education. Zakhira Begalieva and Gulmira Kazakunova, disability rights activists who head Kazakhstan’s I Teach Me and Kyrgyzstan’s Ravenstvo, respectively, last month joined more than 1,000 people from 100 countries in Vienna for the UN’s 2024 Project Zero Conference to learn more about Inclusive education and information and communication technology (ICT), and to explore regional and global alliance-building opportunities.
“Here you feel some kind of freedom and you feel that opportunities are not limited,” said Kazakunova.
In Kazakhstan, I Teach Me provides online training for youth with disabilities to prepare them for future employment and, in Kyrgyzstan, Ravenstvo educates women with disabilities to help them secure jobs and advocates for inclusive education to help increase job market participation for women with disabilities.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which aims to create conditions for persons with disabilities to participate in society on an equal basis with others and free from discrimination, was ratified by Kazakhstan in 2015 and Kyrgyzstan in 2019. However, discrimination against people with disabilities has persisted.
In Kazakhstan, the UN Development Program (UNDP) reports that the country’s more than 750,000 people with disabilities every day, “face obstacles on the way to gaining equal access to education, health and employment.” The Solidarity Center in Kazakhstan is supporting partners who, after years of advocating for inclusivity, are now focused on implementation of new legislative measures and a legal framework adopted to ensure implementation of CRPD. Starting this year, more than 34,000 workers with disabilities were covered by measures to promote employment.
In Kyrgyzstan, the Solidarity Center is supporting a program focused on reducing discrimination in employment and promoting the labor rights of workers with disabilities—the first of its kind in the country. A 2022 Solidarity Center study revealed that only 20 percent of people with disabilities surveyed in Kyrgyzstan were employed, most in insecure seasonal or part-time jobs. Through a combination of legislative analysis, large-scale media campaigns, the development of a mobile application, individual legal support, educational trainings and collaboration with key organizations, the Solidarity Center is working to make real change for people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan, including efforts to harmonize regulations and mechanisms in the country’s labor code to improve laws impacting people with disabilities.
Unions and other worker associations can be especially effective advocates for disability rights. The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that unions are the strongest voices advocating for the rights of people with disabilities at work around the world. Public-sector unions, where survey data shows workers with disabilities experience higher levels of union representation, are natural organizers around rights issues because of their position at the nexus of governance and work.
Learn more about strategies that civil society allies in Kyrgyzstan, with Solidarity Center support, are using to advance and protect the rights of people with disabilities—including coalition-building and joint advocacy projects with national and local disability rights organizations, pro-bono legal support, data collection, legislative reform and trainings-of-trainers with disabilities. [Video in Russian]
A milestone convening in Tashkent last week brought together stakeholders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan government ministries and agencies, non-governmental and civil society sectors, and international organizations as a first step in developing a joint action plan to combat forced labor and advance worker rights in the region. Worldwide, 28 million people were reportedly trapped in forced labor in 2021.
The May 22 conference highlighted labor inspectorates’ role in protecting worker rights and combating forced labor in the region. Solidarity Center supported the event, which was organized in collaboration with “Partnership in Action,” an international NGO network of more than 30 Central Asian organizations, Kyrgyzstan’s Migrant Workers Union’s partner organization “Insan-Leylek” and Uzbekistan’s Istiqbolli Avlod.
“There is a crucial need for regional cooperation in labor inspections, because migration patterns are constantly changing,” says “Insan-Leylek” leader Gulnara Derbisheva.
Recognizing the importance of collective action, the conference hosts provided a forum for representatives of labor inspectorates from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to share their expertise and experiences within their respective countries. Government representatives from each of those countries reiterated their commitment to labor inspectorates working cooperatively with one another and with the region’s worker rights defenders to fight labor exploitation and promote safer working environments and dignified work for all.
Topics included international standards related to the work of inspectorates, issues surrounding forced labor in Central Asia and the importance of labor inspections given the region’s unique challenges. Participants identified a severe shortage of labor inspectors—Solidarity Center research finds that 250 labor inspectors oversee 280,000 legal entities employing 6.5 million people in Kazakhstan, 30 inspectors oversee thousands of enterprises in Kyrgyzstan and 315 inspectors oversee 578,000 registered entities in Uzbekistan—and discussed restrictions on inspectorates’ effectiveness. Although the International Labor Organization (ILO) standards specify that inspections be conducted without prior notification, all three countries require prior consent and advance notice for inspections and exclude small businesses from inspection mandates. Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are currently considering legislative changes to rectify such loopholes.
“The outcomes of the conference have the potential to transform labor protection, ensuring safer and fairer working conditions for everyone in the region,” says Solidarity Center Europe and Central Asia Regional Program Director Rudy Porter.
According to ILO data, some 2.3 million women and men around the world succumb to work-related accidents or diseases every year, including 340 million victims of occupational accidents and 160 million victims of work-related illnesses. The ILO reports 11,0000 fatal occupational accidents annually in the 12-member states comprising the Commonwealth of Independent States—Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—but points to “gross underreporting” of occupational accidents and diseases in the region.
Kazakhstan has the most developed digital market in the region, and digital platform companies operate in Kazakhstan’s major cities. With the sector’s growth, the vulnerability of workers in this segment has also become more apparent, especially for marginalized groups.
Победа в борьбе за гендерное равенство и равенство в оплате труда в бывшей советской республике Казахстан: в прошлом месяце эта страна отменила список рабочих мест, юридически недоступных для женщин с 1932 года. Такие дискриминационные списки, которые вынуждают женщин отказываться от более высокооплачиваемой работы в традиционно мужских секторах в пользу низкооплачиваемых профессий, в которых доминируют женщины, – типичны для данного региона, а также для Беларуси, Кыргызстана, России и Узбекистана.
Отмена данного списка в Казахстане стала возможной в результате многолетних усилий адвокации партнера Центра Солидарности – Казахстанского Международного Бюро по правам человека (КМБПЧ) на встречах, конференциях и других форумах с политиками и представителями правительства, включая Министерство труда и социальной защиты Республики Казахстан и Комиссию по правам человека при Президенте Республики Казахстан.
“В современном мире не должно быть дискриминационных ограничений на доступ к работе, и все люди сами имеют право выбирать, где и как работать”, – сказал заместитель директора КМБПЧ Денис Дживага.
Работа, в которой ранее женщинам было отказано, включала относительно хорошо оплачиваемые рабочие места в строительстве, металлообработке, горнодобывающей промышленности и нефтедобыче, в том числе: работы, выполняемые на высоте или под землей; квалифицированные строительные, дорожные и металлообрабатывающие работы, включая кладку, работу на землеройной технике, плавку руды, установку труб и сварку; а также специализированные работы в разведке и геодезии, такие как бурение скважин, установка вышек и прессование труб.
Список Казахстана, который ограничивал доступ женщин к более чем 200 профессиям на том основании, что работа была слишком тяжелой или опасной с физической точки зрения, был отменен после того, как правительство Казахстана признало в Комитете ООН по ликвидации дискриминации в отношении женщин (КЛДЖ), что запреты на работу способствовали неравенству в оплате труда мужчин и женщин. Комитет ООН по экономическим, социальным и культурным правам (CESR) рекомендовал Казахстану рассмотреть другие формы правовой защиты женщин, чтобы обеспечить их безопасность на работе, а не осуществлять полный запрет на доступ к определенным профессиям.
“Гендерное равенство и равенство в оплате труда требуют, чтобы мужчины и женщины имели равный доступ ко всем видам работы и чтобы все рабочие места были безопасными для всех работников”, – подчеркнул директор региональной программы Центра солидарности в Европе и Центральной Азии Руди Портер.
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