This year, on March 8, Almaty will host a peaceful rally dedicated to the participation of women in the management of state affairs. This is the second time that the city authorities agreed to hold the protest rally.
At the same time, the Almaty akimat refused to hold a peaceful procession, and the number of participants at a rally should not exceed a thousand people. However, obtaining even such a limited permit was not easy.
The feminists of Kazakhstan started preparing for the 2022 protest rally in the fall of 2021. On November 16, the organizers submitted an application to the Almaty akimat for approval of a peaceful march and a notification on holding a rally on March 8, 2022. Two days later, they were asked to make adjustments to their application, and on November 22 they were refused permission to hold a rally. The akimat explained this by the fact that on March 8, all places in the city are occupied by other events.
On February 7, 2022, activists of the feminist movement again requested permission from the Almaty authorities to hold a women’s march and rally on March 8. On February 9, the akimat sent a response on the approval of the rally, and on February 17 – a refusal to hold a peaceful march due to repair and installation work on the streets.
The authorities of Kazakhstan have never supported the feminist movement. At the end of May 2021, Gulzada Serzhan and Zhanar Serkebayeva, founders of the Kazakh feminist initiative Feminita, were detained in Shymkent after they were attacked by a group of aggressive men. They planned to hold a meeting about women’s rights with the residents of the city. Moreover, in July, a similar training in Karaganda was disrupted by the akimat, the organizers and participants were detained by the police.
Peaceful rallies, flash-mobs, and pickets in support of women in Kazakhstan usually result in fines and arrests. But despite this, holding a rally and a peaceful march on International Women’s Day has become an annual tradition for the feminist movement in Kazakhstan.
“Our organization has been trying to hold a peaceful rally since 2017. However, only in 2021, the akimat gave permission for the first time,” says Gulzada Serzhan.
Back then, in 2017, the women’s march in Almaty was held without permission and only about 20 people participated in it.
In 2018, the Kazakh feminist initiative Feminita applied to the akimat to hold a peaceful rally. Nevertheless, permission was not given to them, and therefore the events were decided not to be held.
In 2019, an unauthorized peaceful march was dispersed by the police.
In 2020, Feminita also tried to get permission to hold a peaceful rally on March 8, but it was unsuccessful. Therefore, the action in support of women was held without authorization, and two participants – Fariza Ospan and Irina Pukhnatova – were detained and fined.
Fariza Ospan was found guilty by the district court under the article “Petty hooliganism” of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) and fined 13,255 tenge ($33 at the exchange rate for 2020). Irina Pukhnatova was charged under two articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses – “Petty hooliganism” and “Violation of the law on the procedure for organizing and holding peaceful assemblies.” She was fined 66,275 tenge ($166 at 2020 exchange rates).
In the same year, the Parliament of Kazakhstan adopted the Law “On Peaceful Assemblies”, according to which, in order to hold a peaceful rally, it is only necessary to notify the local authorities and no approval is required.
Women’s march in Akmaty in 2021. Photo courtesy of Gulzada Serzhan
In 2021, the Almaty akimat for the first time gave permission to hold a women’s march on March 8. Participants walked about 5 kilometers along the streets of the city. According to various estimates, from 500 to 1000 people took part in it.
As stated in a statement on the official page of the march and rally on March 8 in Almaty, in 2022 the main topic is the participation of women in the management of state affairs. Despite the fact that since 2020 Kazakhstan has set a 30% quota for women and youth in the electoral lists of political parties, the number of women in the country’s parliament has never reached this level.
A similar situation is observed in other state structures - malikhats, akimats, ministries and large corporations.
“Despite the fact that 44.2% of small and medium-sized enterprises in Kazakhstan are headed by women, only 4.2% of the heads of large corporations are women. The gender income gap is 33%. Women usually work as an addition to men and at lower levels of the hierarchy,” mentioned political scientist Kazbek Maygeldinov.
The organizers of the peaceful march and rally on March 8 in Almaty believe that such a picture, in particular, explains the unresolved problems of not only women who have experienced gender-based violence, but also the problems of mothers of large families, political prisoners, single mothers, women in a difficult economic situation, drug addicted women and Kazakh women, living with HIV.
“There are many restrictions for women in Kazakhstan. For example, in the country, women with disabilities can unconcernedly be sterilized and their reproductive rights violated without their consent. It is unnecessary to mention that there are many problems. It is imperative to pay attention to all this,” says Gulzada Serzhan.
According to Zhanar Serkebayeva, co-founder of the Kazakh feminist initiative Feminita - holding peaceful rallies and marches is one way to point out these problems.
“Of course, we cannot improve the situation of women with one or more rallies. But we will not stop at one rally. We will not stop until women's rights improve. In the future, we will hold rallies and marches not only in Almaty, but also in other regions of Kazakhstan,” she says.
As in some other countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan still has a list of 299 professions prohibited for women. But besides list, women are not hired for a number of professions.
Almagul lives in the city of Almaty and dreams of working as a driver of large trucks. Before that, she worked as a truck driver for a private company for five years, but when she tried to get a job in a government organization, nothing came of it.
“I wanted to study and work, but they didn’t hire me because I am a woman. This is very unfair. This is a direct violation of human rights by the state. I can do this job very well, but in Kazakhstan the task of women is to give birth to children and stay at home,” she says.
The coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions have further exacerbated the situation of women around the world and in Central Asia in particular.
“According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the number of domestic crimes in the family during the pandemic increased by 21%. More than 500 victims of domestic violence were sent to crisis centers. Today, many are unhappy due to the fact that women's voices are slowed down, or because of the "oppression" of relatives," says lawyer Bakytzhan Toregozhina.
For 8 months of 2021, the police received 130,000 complaints about domestic violence. Only 2.5 thousand people were prosecuted.
“Women's activism is not a struggle for power, but a struggle for life. We are all different. But we are united by the desire for justice, equality, and freedom,” says Toregozhina.
According to the World Economic Forum, in the Gender Gap Index, Kazakhstan lost 28 points from 2017 to 2021, dropping from 52nd to 80th position. At the same time, according to the National Commission for Women's Affairs and Family and Demographic Policy under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, it is women who provide almost 40 percent of the country's GDP.