The following comments are directly taken from conversations I had mostly with Tajik women (and one man) about their country and its various attitudes to women. Many of these people were Pamiri Ismailis who see themselves as having a markedly different culture and attitudes than other Tajiks. They have their own slant on things. This is what they wanted to tell me, and I have put in very little of my own interpretation, except to add in web links where I believe these may be useful.
In many Tajik families (but seemingly less so among the Pamiris), the wife is seen as a cook, cleaner and baby-maker, who does not eat with the husband if he has guests. Pamiri Ismailis however, maintain that these attitudes are less common among their community.
An Ismaili male friend F told me that, following the Aga Khan’s teaching, the education of girls is seen as more important than the education of boys, among Ismailis. This is because it is women who spend more time with their children during their child’s formative early years. Thus it is seen that educating women is raising the education standards for the whole of society.
The husband, F, works in IT and the wife P works in a supermarket. They live in Dushanbe, having moved here recently from the Pamirs. The fact that the wife works, and with young children, would be much less common outside the capital. Their two year old son is sent to kindergarten.
Their 6 year old elder daughter is currently being looked after by her grandparents in the Pamirs. As a Pamiri girl her education is seen as paramount, and she can be educated well in the mountains. It seems to be more common and accepted in Tajikistan that children live with someone else in the extended family, often the grandparents.
Ismaili women tell me that it is seen by some people that men should be educated more than women, or to put it another way women should be less educated than their husbands. So a woman could be overeducated to find a husband.
They tell me that it is an imported idea, which is taking some hold amongst Tajiks and even some members of their own community. Marriage is still seen to be the main aim for women today in Tajik society, and many people wonder what the point of educating a woman is if she is just going to sit at home? Indeed that is the literal translation of khaneshin, or housewife in Tajik, ‘she who sits at home’. There is no credit in this word paid to the hard work women do, looking after home and family.
An educated woman is seen to be less likely to be submissive to her husband and his family, and also more likely to know her rights and want to stand up for herself.
Now it is against the law to leave school before 18 years, a law which just changed in 2009. However it still seems that many girls, especially in rural areas do not continue much past primary school. One woman in L’s apartment block is keeping her 12 year old daughter at home to help with the baby. L wanted to report her to the police, but knew that it would not do any good, and only result in a fine or bribe for the poor woman to pay, and the daughter still wouldn’t go to school.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/tajikistan-teenage-girls-dropping-out-school http://iwpr.net/report-news/tackling-early-marriage-tajikistan
http://acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0184/326
L is an intelligent and feisty Pamiri woman, who won scholarships to study in the West, as did her husband. She also has a strong Ismaili faith and is involved with her community. However now, after a long time abroad, both her and her husband are back in Tajikistan, working for international aid organisations. They are trying to change the country from within and contribute to its development. She is really sad about women not working or getting a worse education than used to happen during the Soviet period.
She told me the sacrifices her father went through to give her and her brothers and sisters an education. During Tajikistan’s civil war (1992-97), she had to walk for an hour each way through the mountains in the mountainous Pamirs to go to school. Often there were not enough clothes to wear in the bitter winters when the Pamirs were cut off by snow from the rest of the country. There was hardly any food to eat, apart from what could be grown in the mountain valleys. Their family, like many others survived on a food similar to porridge. As there were no goods in the shops most of these were closed.
When her father discovered that she was one of the finalists to go to America to spend a year at American high school, he sold one of their cows for meat. She protested, as this was the main source of income for her family. This money enabled her to travel to Dushanbe for the final competition. It was 1994 and she was fifteen years old.
Her first time in her capital city was fraught with danger. She did not know anyone, the fighting of the civil war that she had largely escaped in the mountains was raging round Dushanbe, and the city was under constant curfews. However in spite of all this she won the competition and travelled to the US to attend high school. This naturally was a huge culture shock for a young girl who had hardly even travelled round her own country. She is still in touch with her American host family, which she regards as her second family.
L believes things are going backwards in Tajikistan, especially where women’s rights are concerned. In the share taxis and minibuses there are often religious tapes playing. One time she told me she stood her ground, saying “Either you give me my money back or stop the tape now as I cannot bear this any more!” The man on the tape was saying that if a woman raises her voice at her husband then it would literally take years off his life. The message was clear: whatever a husband did, there was no justification for a woman to speak out or back. L told the other women in the taxi “How can you stand to listen this? You have to think about what they are saying and what it means for women and how we are treated!”
However, sadly in general, L she thinks that no one is speaking about what happens to women, no one is writing about it, although when she and her friends get together they feel bad that they are not doing it either. At the moment her job with an international organisation means she cannot speak out about such things, at least under her own name. However she feels something should be done.
Today there is a very high rate of female suicide and it is steadily mounting. Women often do not see any way out when their husbands or their husband’s families treat them badly. It is seen as wrong or impossible to return to their own families, and very few women have independent means to live without either their husbands’ or their own families’ support and protection.
Often I was told (by women) that a girl is only wanted if it is the third or fourth child, is seen as only good for marrying off and then to produce children. And that if they don’t do either of those what is the point of them?
Women I spoke to told of the difficulty women have being unmarried in their mid thirties. One female friend, Z, told me that her brothers are supported by the family much more than her or her sisters. For example the sons were bought flats by her parents but the daughters were not. While her older sister has managed to get her own flat she has not been able to. Sons traditionally have to support families of their own, thus their own parents will do their utmost to help them. Whereas traditionally daughters should be supported by her husband and his family. Buying an apartment is almost impossible without parental help.
Although Z’s parents have helped her, she knows that at 34 she is very old to get married. She is not provided for by her husband or her family – in the same way as the sons.
A curious teenager M came to visit, keen to meet me, an English person. She couldn’t believe I was able to travel round Tajikistan on my own, not speaking the language! She speaks very street Tajik, and doesn’t understand the Tajik word for ‘research’, or Arabic words like ‘jadid’ meaning ‘new’, that is commonly used in Persian. These are words that an educated Tajik would understand. L thinks that she doesn’t know or understand that there are different registers, and that she is not being taught these words in school. L does not believe that it is a very good school.
M was shocked that L’s husband was doing the washing up, letting his heavily pregnant wife relax. L had to tell him to stop as it would get round the whole apartment block, and his role as a husband would be undermined and remarked upon negatively by others.
People in heat of summer used to chuck used nappies out of the window, these were not put in a plastic bag. When L complained about this to a neighbour, they replied that those people are from a family who lives near Kulyab, (where the President, Imomali Rahmon is from), and many of them are in the military or are traffic cops.
The other woman said “ Don’t complain as it’s not worth it, it won’t do any good. They won’t change their ways, as they are the ones who think they’re educated. They think they are better than everyone else.”
L is trying to improve her landing in the apartment block, which is shared by four flats. They were all grateful when she put electric light in, as before the landing was in darkness. However none of them had thought to do it, or wanted to pay for it. L cleaned the landing for a long time by herself before the other flats agreed to get together a rota.
Now she has grander plans, painting the landing, and getting the lift going to the 6th floor where they live, instead of having to walk down from the seventh. This would be much more difficult with a pram. Not that many parents have prams in Dushanbe. The state of the pavements mean that most children get carried around clutched to the chest of the mother or father.
L told me that Sunni Muslim women are not allowed to enter most mosques to pray. Indeed, while I was in Dushanbe last October, the only ‘Women’s mosque’, where they could pray next to the men was burnt down apparently by arson. According to the same article, women have been forbidden from attending mosque prayers since 2004.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Islamic_Party_Cries_Foul_As_Tajikistans_Womens_Mosque_Burns/2200792.html
It is fairly common for men to have three or four wives, it is happening both in the villages and among government ministers. The latter are educated people who provide luxury homes for each wife. But in Tajikistan it does not work as it does in Arabic countries, where it is the law to provide equally for all wives. In Tajikistan if a husband has a favourite wife, there is nothing to stop the him favouring her whilst the children from his unloved wives are left to starve.
My friend also questions how can they support four luxury households on their government salaries, which might be $1000 / month. They obtain much more than this from corruption.
Talking to Z, it is easier in the country for men to have up to four wives, as with a bit of land they can feed themselves. The fathers don’t think about educating their children just having as many as possible, as this is important to show their virility build a power base and have some security when the couple is older. So many children are not going to school and are hanging around the bazaars, working from an early age. My friend wonders how are they going to get on?
Her niece goes to school which costs $500 pa. which is prohibitive for most families.
It seems that the practise of taking multiple wives also stems from the Civil War, when many men died, leaving an estimated 50,000 orphans and 20,000 widows of to fend for themselves.
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Country_briefing_papers/Women_in_Tajikistan/women_in_tajikistan.pdf
Second wives are not legal under Tajik law, although widely accepted. So if the husband wishes to divorce them, which he can do by saying se talaq “I divorce you” three times, they have no rights to property or to any recompense for themselves or their children. Under Islamic law, husbands should look after their divorced wives, but this is not happening.
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1252188255899&pagename=Zone-English-News%2FNWELayout
These husbands sometimes divorce wives by text message – which is in contradiction of Islamic law, which states that the se talaq should be in the presence of the woman.
Today, with so many men migrating to work in Russia and Kazakhstan, women are left at home with the husband’s family, often for years, hoping that the money keeps coming for their upkeep. Sadly these men often find other wives in their new homes.
Z also told me that it is becoming more difficult being a woman in Tajikistan. She thinks that Tajik men would like to do the same to women as in Afghanistan – but the women here are more protected under the law. However reading the following article, the law does not protect women in reality
http://iwpr.net/report-news/gender-equality-dead-letter-tajikistan
Contraception in TJ is practised but many men don’t like wearing condoms – (as anywhere). They also think that for a woman to have an orgasm is a sin, and don’t want her to come as then she might look for pleasure elsewhere.
She also talked about how at the moment in Tajikistan in the event of a divorce the children stay with the mother. However it is possible that the law might change to bring them more in line with other Muslim countries, so that the children stay with the father. At the moment if there are two children the father might take one if the mother agrees. At the moment both children would not go to the father like in Iran for example.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/divorce-leaves-tajik-women-out-cold
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2009/02_09/02_02_09/020209_tajikistan.htm
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