Meet the Women Who Pushed Uzbekistan to Criminalize Domestic Violence

On April 11, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed long-awaited amendments to the country’s legislation on the protection of women and children from violence. “I think that domestic violence, and even sexual violence towards minors, is really widespread in Uzbekistan, but as in many countries, those are taboo topics and latent crimes,” Irina Matvienko, a feminist activist and a founder of nemolchi.uz, a project dedicated to fight against gender-based violence in Uzbekistan, told The Diplomat. “In Uzbekistan, in cases of gender-based violence, everyone blames women.” Nozima Davletova, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of Uzbekistan’s Public Foundation for Support and Development of National Mass Media, noted in an interview with The Diplomat that for a long time domestic violence was just an invisible problem. “Before the criminalization of domestic violence, such crimes were addressed under several articles of the Criminal Code, in which responsible persons, that is, persons who commit these crimes, could be not only relatives, spouses or ex-spouses, or partners, but any strangers too,” explained Kamola Alieva, a lawyer, gender specialist, and an associate professor at Tashkent State University of Law. Although civil rights and women’s rights activists have been pushing for the criminalization of domestic violence for years, progress on the bill that started last year was met with some resistance.