Despite legislation designed to secure gender equality, women rarely make it beyond deputy positions in the Tajik government, and instead remain stuck in the lower ranks or hit a glass ceiling after reaching middle management.
Tajikistan has no female cabinet ministers, though the state committee for women and family affairs is headed by a woman.
Marifat Shokirova, who heads the committee’s gender department, argues that government efforts have resulted in improvements this year.
President Imomali Rahmon promoted nine women – almost all to deputy positions – at the start of the year. Eight were promoted to become deputy heads of government bodies including the agriculture ministry, the committee on investment and state property management. and the state electricity provider Bark-i Tojik.
A ninth woman was made head of the municipal government in the northern town of Chkalovsk, becoming one of just four women nationwide heading town or district authorities.
Oinikhol Bobonazarova, head of the Perspektiva Plus NGO, said she was pleased with the number of women promoted, but disappointed by the levels they had reached.
She questioned whether government officials were taking a presidential decree on women’s promotion too literally.
Read the complete story at Institute for War and Peace Reporting, published 23 July 2012.
Despite legislation designed to secure gender equality, women rarely make it beyond deputy positions in the Tajik government, and instead remain stuck in the lower ranks or hit a glass ceiling after reaching middle management.
Tajikistan has no female cabinet ministers, though the state committee for women and family affairs is headed by a woman.
Marifat Shokirova, who heads the committee’s gender department, argues that government efforts have resulted in improvements this year.
President Imomali Rahmon promoted nine women – almost all to deputy positions – at the start of the year. Eight were promoted to become deputy heads of government bodies including the agriculture ministry, the committee on investment and state property management. and the state electricity provider Bark-i Tojik.
A ninth woman was made head of the municipal government in the northern town of Chkalovsk, becoming one of just four women nationwide heading town or district authorities.
Oinikhol Bobonazarova, head of the Perspektiva Plus NGO, said she was pleased with the number of women promoted, but disappointed by the levels they had reached.
She questioned whether government officials were taking a presidential decree on women’s promotion too literally.
Read the complete story at Institute for War and Peace Reporting, published 23 July 2012.