DUSHANBE, March 19, 2012, Asia-Plus — The Drug Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan has denied the part of the report by Harm Reduction International (HRI) about incarceration of women for drug offences regarding Tajikistan as unfounded.
We will recall that HRI report entitled “Cause for Alarm: The Incarceration of Women for Drug Offences in Europe and Central Asia, and the Need for Legislative and Sentencing Reform” suggests that the highest percentage of women in prisons for drug offences was found in Tajikistan (70%, or 420 out of 600 female prisoners). The report notes that female population in Tajikistan is 3,519,360.
Meanwhile, Tajik counternarcotics agency says persons convicted for drug-related crimes have accounted for not more that 12-13 percent of the total number of convicted persons in Tajikistan in recent years.
16,864 crimes were registered in Tajikistan in 2011 and the drug-related crimes accounted for only 5.5 percent of the overall number crimes reported in the country last year, DCA noted.
7,826 people, including 805 women, were convicted in 2011. Of 805 convicted women, only 41 (4.2 percent) were convicted for drug-related crimes.
In 2009 and 2010, the number of women convicted for drug-related cries was 57 and 55 respectively.
In 2011, 237 women were serving their terms in penal colonies of the Ministry of Justice and only 54 (4.3 percent) of them were serving their terms for drug related crimes.
As of March 16, 2012, 96 women have served their terms in penal colonies for various crimes and only 8 of them have served their terms for drug related crimes.
Besides, according to the 2010 population census, female population in Tajikistan is 3,747,500, DCA reports.
The HRI report says there are over 112,500 women in prison across Europe and Central Asia. Of these, 28% – or 31,400 women – are in prison for drug offences. This represents more than one in four incarcerated women in the region, demonstrating the impact of drug laws and drug enforcement on rates of imprisonment of women. In fact, drug offences outstrip by a considerable margin all others as the reason for women entering prison.
The report notes that the highest percentage of women in prisons for drug offences was found in Tajikistan (70%, or 420 out of 600 female prisoners), followed closely by Latvia (68%, or 191 out of 278). The lowest percentage was found in Poland, where only 82 women are in prison for drugs out of a total of 2,604, representing 3.1% of the entire female prison population.
The report collected data from fifty-one European and Central Asian countries between August 2011 and February 2012 through government agencies, including national prison services, ministries of justice and drug agencies; as well as academic researchers and civil society organisations. Drug offences include possession, preparation, production, purchase and sale of illicit substances.
