The Committee for Women and Family Affairs has proposed to criminalize sexual harassment, while some lawyers consider that it may lead to increase in the number of cases of blackmail by women and corruption in the law enforcement agencies.
The proposal to criminalize sexual harassment was made a conference on violence against women that took place in Dushanbe last week.
Representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court supported this initiative, according to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, locally known as Radio Ozodi.
Meanwhile some lawyers argue that will not necessarily prevent future sexual harassment cases. Commenting on the proposal to criminalize sexual harassment, Navrouz Odinayev, Director of the Legal Firm Himoya (Protection), for example, says it may have the opposite effect and lead to increase in the number of cases of blackmail by women and corruption in the law enforcement agencies.
Tajikistan has no law on sexual harassment and men’s treatment of women in public spaces has never received much public attention in the country. Sexual harassment is a closed topic in Tajikistan and women are afraid to talk publicly about harassment.
Representatives of law enforcement agencies say they have received sexual harassment complaints but it is impossible to punish because of the absence of a specific law.
At the roundtable that took place in early April this year, representatives of government institutions and civil society decided that street harassment against women should be punished as “malicious hooliganism” within the Code of Administrative Offenses of Tajikistan, and that these cases should be covered by the media.
