Turkmenistan has two faces. The primary is the one we see in state media: a reasonably dancer, a caring mom, a sister or daughter in a fantastic conventional costume. She could also be dancing, cooking or adorning an occasion along with her presence.
The second is nearer to actuality: ladies and ladies who’ve nowhere to go after they meet home violence, haven’t any recourse to contraception and household planning companies, and face sexual harassment – just a few examples on an extended listing of unmet wants.
Entry to info is severely curtailed. The state owns or controls all media and the web is aggressively censored and restricted.
As founder and editor of Saglyk.org, the one web site with credible public well being info within the Turkmen language, my colleagues and I’ve been calling for nuanced and knowledgeable conversations by educating the general public and advocating for science-based finest practices in public well being in Turkmenistan.
Ladies and ladies are taught that home violence is a personal matter to be heroically endured in silence
Saglyk’s complete content material on sexual and reproductive well being is our most learn. There’s a nice demand for this info, particularly amongst ladies and ladies. Turkmen colleges don’t train it. Households don’t focus on it. The media doesn’t publish tales about it. The general public house to debate this fundamental side of being human is nonexistent.
Authorities businesses maintain this confusion by not offering science-based info to the general public and failing to offer any public well being knowledge. This results in ladies and ladies in Turkmenistan having poor well being outcomes. It additionally strips them of their company. This wants to alter.
Based on Unicef, Turkmenistan has the very best mortality charge amongst under-fives in central Asia. Based on the most recent UN inhabitants fund figures solely 50% of Turkmen ladies who’re married or in a relationship are utilizing a contemporary type of contraception. And throughout all ladies aged 15-49, 8% have an unmet want for contraception.
In Turkmenistan, practically 60% of girls can’t make unbiased selections on basic points comparable to healthcare, contraception and consenting to intercourse. The federal government promotes the pro-natalist messages of eight-child households, reinforcing the thought of girls’s major function as subservient wives and moms.
The primary nationwide report on home violence in opposition to ladies, revealed by UNFPA in August 2022, discovered that 58% of girls aged 15-49 imagine that violating the restrictions and obligations imposed by a partner is adequate cause for a husband to beat his spouse. The most typical type of spousal management is stopping ladies from leaving the home with out permission. The second most typical is banning ladies from working or learning exterior the house. Based on the examine, 41% of girls have encountered a minimum of one sort of controlling behaviour from their husband or companion of their lives.
Patriarchal tradition, dangerous traditions, authorities inaction and absence of public training and communication drive consciousness of reproductive and sexual well being underground. The general public in Turkmenistan see abortion as one thing deeply immoral so ladies choose to maintain silent. This additionally applies to the endemic home violence within the nation. Ladies and ladies are taught that it’s a non-public matter that shouldn’t be mentioned in public however heroically endured in silence.
Many authorities orders are communicated by phrase of mouth, with out authorized standing. This creates room for corruption, misinterpretation and hypothesis, not solely in public well being however in all areas of financial and social life.
The restrictive legislation on abortion in Turkmenistan undermines the rights, dignity and well being of half the inhabitants, denying them entry to important reproductive healthcare. In 2015, the federal government handed a legislation limiting abortion to solely as much as 5 weeks. Earlier than 2015, ladies in Turkmenistan had been allowed to entry abortion care as much as 12 weeks.
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The abortion legislation additional entrenches well being inequality: ladies with assets can overcome the restriction and have an abortion however ladies with decrease monetary and social standing can’t afford to bypass these restrictions and haven’t any community to take action.
Analysis reveals that limiting entry to abortion drives it underground and makes it unsafe. The legislation was adopted with none public dialogue on the medical, ethical, authorized and financial penalties, and was solely made public in 2022. Our requires constructive engagement with the Ministry of Well being have been met with silence.
Saglyk has created a protected house to anonymously share tales of home violence, abuse and harassment. Our Bilim app helps ladies and ladies observe their intervals and study their well being and rights (Bilim means each interval and information).
However these efforts should not sufficient to deliver structural adjustments to our society, so up to now two years we now have been more and more participating with worldwide organisations. We’re asking organisations that grant or lend cash to the nation to carry the federal government accountable on its worldwide commitments to gender equality and the way in which they’re applied in observe.
This fashion, we will be certain that tomorrow we don’t get up to a brand new legislation that can additional prohibit the essential rights of Turkmen ladies and ladies to dignity and equality.
Aynabat Yaylymova is the founder and govt director of Saglyk and Progres Basis.
