This past week, the Silk Road Briefing explored the prospects for Railway Transit in Kazakhstan, while women from different cities of Central Asia took to the street to observe March 8th. Eurasianet detailed the vaccination campaign against HPV in Kyrgyzstan that started in 2017, and the date and content of Uzbekistan's next referendum are now known, as participants of the Karakalpakstan's unrest face up to 12 years in prison.
IWD March in Bishkek. Credit: Yumi Toboe, for CCASC
On Monday, Eurasianet assessed the progression of the Human Papillomavirus vaccination in Kyrgyzstan– a crucial agenda, as cervical cancer (most often caused by HPV) is the most common cause of death among women affected by oncological diseases in the country. Enough vaccine shots have yet to be brought to the country to vaccinate the 240 000 girls eligible for free vaccination (11 to 14 years old). But demand has been constrained, according to the Health Ministry, by an anti-vax sentiment, notably in the capital.
On Tuesday, the Silk Road Briefing analyzed the development and improvement of railway transport through Kazakhstan. It was stated at a meeting in Beijing last week that transport between China and Kazakhstan had reached 23 million tons in 2022, 15% more than the previous years. Besides, a recent agreement between authorized operators of China, Kazakhstan and Germany allowed for special customs simplification for transport flows from China to the EU countries through Kazakhstan. The article also reports that the optimization along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, decreased the delivery time of goods from China to the Black Sea ports in Georgia from 38-53 to 19-23 days. By the end of 2023, that is expected to be shortened to 14-18 days.
On the occasion of International Women's Day, different newspapers published articles about the fight for gender equality in Central Asian countries. Novastan was present in Almaty (Kazakhstan) to witness hundreds of demonstrators, demanding appropriate legislation, as a draft law on Combating Domestic Violence was withdrawn in 2021 due to a need for improvement. A similar march took place in Bishkek. Radio Free Europe described the decline of women's condition in Turkmenistan during the past years, with a de facto driving ban, where according to a UNFPA-supported survey, 16 percent of the population experience some form of abuse by their intimate partners.
Finally, it was announced on March 10th that the referendum on the new Uzbek constitution will take place on April 30th (RFE). This new constitution should allow President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to run for a third term, and for 7 years instead of 5. This will be the third referendum in the Republic of Uzbekistan, the first two served a similar purpose for Mirziyoyev's predecessor, Islam Karimov. The original draft published in June, which included the scrapping of the Karakalpak Republic’s constitutional right to secede, had sparked protests in the region, which led to the death of 21 protestors. These amendments have now been set aside, and 39 participants in the unrest are being trialed this week for their involvement in the Karakalpakstan's unrest of last July (Eurasianet).
