Emerging from poverty as champions of change: Women and children in post-war Tajikistan

Conventional logic maintains that any country in post-conflict transition faces difficult challenges. However, the magnitude of Tajikistan’s challenges in its post-independence development has been striking. Civil war, economic transition, high levels of migration and a re-emergence and invention of religious and patriarchal traditions have dramatically changed the Tajik family and the position of women and children. Following the collapse of Soviet rule, men gained power in almost all the important new institutions of society, while women’s access to power in these institutions was curtailed. Further, the increased and multidimensional aspect of poverty that confronted Tajikistan had the most dramatic effect on women and children. Employing a gender and social development approach, combined with applied anthropological methods, this chapter explores how Tajik women and children have been coping with economic and social constraints after the civil war (1992–1997).

Related Subject(s): Human Rights and Refugees

Countries: Tajikistan