In Tashkent, women facing violence at home have nowhere to go. No one has heard of shelters, and if a woman has no friends or relatives, the situation becomes impossible: no hotel will take a locally registered single woman, on suspicion of prostitution. It’s pointless contacting the police, even in the most desperate circumstances. In a recent case, police refused to accept a statement by a 14-year old girl that she had been raped, because she was “of the age of consent and had no obvious signs of injury”.
Cases such as these happen in Uzbekistan more often than one can imagine. Neither the law, nor society is interested in protecting victims, instead telling them to find their own way out of difficult circumstances. Uzbekistan was and remains one of the few countries in the world that lacks legislation on domestic violence.
Furthermore, women experience restrictions in a range of spheres. Until 2017, for example, women couldn’t travel freely – in order to leave the country, a woman needed a sticker (the equivalent of an exit visa) from the visa and registration department, and this required the permission of her parents or husband.
