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Central Asia
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Poverty, unemployment and a ticking HIV bomb
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new Central Asian republics experienced a similar financial and social downswing.
The transition from Soviet command economy to open competition on the world market caused massive inflation, unemployment and a near total collapse of the welfare system and public institutions.
Challenges
Ethnic tensions
In a region where people were used to being able to go wherever they wanted to, the new borders and the introduction of border control caused ethnic tensions. Rising unemployment and declining social benefits made the ‘foreign’ seem like a threat. In June 2010 violent fights between Kyrgyzstani and Uzbekistani neighbours, who have lived side by side for decades under Soviet control, broke out in Kyrgyzstan.
Young people are leaving
Unemployment has resulted in a mass migration from the country to the cities (and to foreign countries, especially Russia). In many of the small and medium-sized depopulated towns, old people and children are now alone and extremely reliant on the money that migrant workers send home.
Propiska
Surrounding the large Central Asian cities, huge slums have emerged, and here newcomers live in poor conditions with no access to medical services, education or financial assistance. The miserable conditions result in the ruin of many families.
The HIV epidemic
In Russia, a migrant worker that is not picky can make money by accepting dangerous and unattractive jobs. Money enough to support his family back home and to buy him a mattress on the floor of the small apartment he shares with 12 other workers. And perhaps enough to be comforted by one of the city’s cheapest prostitutes – who are often infected with HIV. Then the disease is transported to his home in the village in Central Asia where very few people have even heard of AIDS.
Democracy and human rights
The form of government in the republics ranges from totalitarianism in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to autocracy in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan is the only -stan republic which, to a limited degree, has introduced democratic elements, such as freedom of speech and free press.
What we do in Central Asia
DanChurchAid has worked in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan since the mid-1990s when the countries were close to breaking up as a consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The work, which was initially a form of relief aid, now focuses on:
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Poor migrant workers that travel from the country to the cities
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Vulnerable children and young people
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The elderly
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The fight against HIV/AIDS
DanChurchAid works in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in close cooperation with sister organisations from Great Britain, the Netherlands and Norway under the name ACT Alliance in Central Asia.
Propiska
A common inheritance from the Soviet age is the civil registration called propiska. Propiska is deciding as regards all citizens’ access to social benefits, rights to vote, rights to a place to live, etc. Propiska is only given to people with a fixed address; in fact, propiska is connected to the fixed address more than it is to the person in question.
This means that people who travel from the country to the city almost automatically lose their propiska. Without propiska – no work permit, medical care, education, right to vote, retirement and other social benefits that all citizens in principle has a right to.
Without propiska people are caught in a downward spiral which makes it almost impossible to escape poverty and become reintegrated into society. It makes a person non-existent, with no rights vis-à-vis the police and authorities, locked in a position that is very similar to the casteless in India.