Nearly two dozen participants from three countries joined in a recent leadership seminar in Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan, to discuss strategies for labor relations in inspectorates, unions and NGOs to fight labor corruption.
The seminar provided a deep understanding of basic labor rights and enabled participants to apply valuable lessons. Credit: Solidarity Center
“I didn’t know that this was such a relevant topic,” said Eshmurodova Sevara, a participant from Uzbekistan. “Corruption exists in our everyday life. As a student, I would like less of it in my life.”
The seminar provided a deep understanding of fundamental labor rights and also enabled participants to apply valuable lessons by utilizing effective tools to combat such corruption in labor as misappropriated funds, or personal gain at the expense of workers.
The regional seminar, part of a Solidarity Center school that facilitator Mukha Kazakhstan described as “very high,” builds on the success of the Annual School of Young Leaders in Kyrgyzstan, a country-wide program launched in 2019. The first Regional Youth School involved civil society and union members and leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Combining practical learning, including simulation exercises and gamification, the hands-on activities enabled participants to better understand the role of key institutions in addressing corruption in labor relations. (A video captures some of interactivity.)
Aliya Narbai, a participant from Kazakhstan, said he not only gained valuable insights, but practical tools he can apply. “After returning to Kazakhstan, I plan to initiate a campaign to raise public awareness about labor rights and corruption,” he said.
Equipped to Go Forward
“The school showed us how similar our challenges are. Now, we understand that we must act together, combining our efforts,” said Umar Zhaliev, a representative of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kyrgyzstan.
The program’s primary goal—to equip young leaders with the knowledge and tools to take action—developed through sessions in which participants created action plans to implement after returning to their countries. Through an emerging youth activist network, participants can develop mutual support and collaboration to advance labor rights and combat corruption throughout the region.
“Organizing the youth school on labor rights was vital because it empowered young people with essential knowledge and fostered community engagement,” says Solidarity Center country program director Lola Abdukadyrova. “By equipping them with this knowledge, we’re nurturing informed advocates who can effectively engage in labor rights discussions and drive positive change in their communities.”
As Sevara said, when I return “to my home city, I will try to study it even more deeply in order to eradicate it, at least in small parts.”
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.
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