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| Avaaz calls on Hillary Clinton to ditch Islam Karimov |
The Republic
of Uzbekistan is Central Asia’s only doubly landlocked country. There is only one
other such country worldwide. Part
of the Soviet Union before 1991, it is designated as “an authoritarian state
with limited civil rights” by the U.S. Department of State, the Council of the European Union most non-governmental human
rights watchdogs, including IHF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
They
all express profound concern about “wide-scale violation of virtually all basic
human rights.” Their reports say Uzbekistan violations are most often
committed against members of religious organizations, independent journalists,
human rights campaigners and political activists, including members of banned
opposition parties.
My
interest and disbelief were triggered by an email from Avaaz.org, the 14-million-member
global campaign network. The email was a statement from Avaaz calling on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reinstate military sanctions against Uzbekistan and lobby the
administration and other powers to lift any and all support to Tashkent.
This came after reports Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov was compelling
doctors to cut out women's uteruses without their knowledge or consent to reinforce “birth control” across
the country. “It’s a vile and bloody crime against
women being orchestrated by an odious strongman, and now is the time for it to
end,” Avaaz said.
I don’t have children, and never
wanted to. That was my personal choice and no one else’s. I am sure that if
someone had said to me, “No, you can’t have children,” then I would have wanted
them. That’s probably why I was so incensed to read about Uzbekistan’s crime of
forcibly and inhumanly preventing women from bearing children.
The Avaaz campaign followed a
two-month long investigation for the BBC World Service and Radio 4. It
uncovered what appears to be a systematic state-run program in Uzbekistan to sterilize women, often against their will and without
their knowledge.
On April 20, 2012, the
pressure group called on Clinton to ditch Karimov despite the recent diplomatic
rapprochement between Washington and Tashkent. The reason is that the U.S. uses
Uzbekistan as a conduit to supply its troops in Afghanistan. “The latest round of brutality against his
country’s women has turned the global spotlight on this monster. Let’s use this
awful moment to persuade his biggest backer to ditch him,” Avaaz wrote.
The network works to ensure
the views and values of the world's people shape global decision-making. Avaaz
members are spread across 19 countries on six continents and operate in 14
languages.
Karimov,
who has been serving since 1990, is one of Central Asia's most autocratic
leaders, running a repressive regime that retains many aspects of the country’s
Soviet past. He does not tolerate dissent, and has banned many opposition
groups, particularly Islamic organizations, and sanctions human rights abuses.
In 2005, a crackdown on protest in the eastern city of Andijan resulted in the deaths of several
hundred people.
“Clinton
can reinstate military sanctions and push the U.S. and other powers to lift any and all
support. She has already publicly condemned Karimov for human rights abuses,
and this most recent assault on women's rights -- a topic she champions -- only
ups the stakes,” Avaaz added.
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| Photo of Karimov from Avaaz.org |
It urged all to sign a petition calling on Clinton
to end Karimov's reign of terror and stop the brutal attack on women. The
petition declared, “We call on you to publicly condemn forced sterilizations
and other human rights abuses inside Uzbekistan. We urge you to end the flood
of cash and re-impose sanctions on the Uzbek regime until independent experts
confirm these atrocities have ended. Finally, we call on you to ensure that
military assistance to Uzbekistan is contingent on wide-ranging improvements in
human rights.”
Activists estimate scores if not hundreds of thousands of women
were sterilized secretly when they went into the hospital for a routine
procedure or to give birth -- waking up with no idea that their
uterus has just been removed. The use of arbitrary arrest and torture is so
widespread that women don’t speak out for fear of reprisals, and foreign
journalists and human rights activists are routinely thrown out of the country,
the organization noted.
The human rights horror show
in Uzbekistan has gone under the radar for years -- but we have a real chance
to break the silence now, using the explosive BBC report, and stand with the
brave Uzbek women who dared to tell their stories in the face of stunning
oppression, Avaaz added.
In an April 21 report in The
Guardian titled Uzbekistan carrying out forced sterilizations,
say women, Delhi-based
BBC reporter Natalia Antelava writes from Kazakhstan, “Over secure phone lines,
doctors and health ministry officials told me that while first recorded cases
of forced sterilizations go back to 2004, in 2009 sterilizations became a state
policy.”
"All of us have a
sterilization quota," said a gynecologist in the capital, Tashkent. "I
have a four-women monthly quota. We are under a lot of pressure."
Doctors say in rural areas the
number can be as high as “eight women a week.”
"We go from house to
house convincing women to have the operation," said a chief surgeon in a
rural hospital. "It's easy to talk a poor woman into it. It's also easy to
trick them," he admitted.
Several doctors said in the
last two years there had been a dramatic increase in caesarean sections across
the country, disputing official statements that only 6.8% of women give birth
that way. "I believe 80% of women give birth through c-sections. This
makes it very easy to tie the fallopian tubes," said one gynecologist.
The Uzbek government said in
a written statement allegations of a forced sterilization program "have
nothing to do with reality" and that "surgical contraception is
carried out only on a voluntary basis after consultation with a specialist and
with the written consent of both spouses. Uzbekistan's record in protecting
mothers and babies is excellent and could be considered a model for countries
around the world," the statement said.
Yes, Uzbekistan is miles
away, but a woman is a woman, is a woman, wherever.
Related post:
Female Genital Mutilation must stop – 13 February 2012
Sources:
- Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilizing women, BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550
- Doctors in Uzbekistan Say Government Forcibly Sterilizing Women, PRI: http://www.theworld.org/2012/04/doctors-in-uzbekistan-say-government-forcibly-sterilizing-women/
- U.S. Suspends Ban On Military Assistance To Uzbekistan: http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan_united_states_military_assistance/24470588.html
- Clinton criticizes Uzbekistan's human rights record, CNN: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-22/asia/world_asia_tajikistan-clinton-visit_1_tajikistan-tajik-afghan-central-asian-country?_s=PM:ASIA
