‘White Gold’ or Women’s Grief? The Gendered Cotton of Tajikistan – Oxfam GB October 2005
I. xecutive ummary 1 E S kept in the dark concerning their labour rights Contrary to dominant institutional and land rights; rural communities are not belief, cotton in Tajikistan, especially given its given any details about the extend of the farm present production structure, is not a cotton debt (estimated on a whole to have ‘strategic’ commodity; is highly inequitable in surpassed US$280 million by July 2005); for its distribution of financial gains in favour of nearly all female cotton workers, major investors rather than the majority-female farm incentives to work is the opportunity to collect workers; exploits the well-being and labour the meagre cotton picking earnings (about rights of children and rural households; leads US$0.03/kg) and the reward of collecting the ghuzapoya to rampant indebtedness of farms; induces end-of-season dried cotton stalks ( ) food insecurity, hunger, and poverty; is used as fuel, bartered or sold; the conditions socially destructive, causing widespread of many farms and farm workers is not unlike migration and dislocation of families; damages ‘bonded labour’ and ‘financial servitude’; not the micro and macro environments, cotton is thus a strategic commodity for contradicting principles of sustainable Tajikistan nor is it a ‘cash crop’ for rural economic development; and if not mitigated women and their households, with the crop of will likely lead to social and economic choice for the far majority being food crops aggravations. such as wheat, corn, potatoes and vegetables. A rapid qualitative study was con- The following advocacy and program- ducted during a three week period in March ming recommendations are presented to and April 2005 in the southern Khatlon Oxfam GB on the issue of gender and cotton province of Tajikistan and the capital city, production in Tajikistan. Recommendations Dushanbe. The research entailed interviews for advocacy: 1) End the de facto cotton (n>25) with experts (NGOs, IOs, government quota; 2) Increase farm minimum wage closer officials on national, province, district, jamoat to a living wage; 3) Promote democratic rule and village levels), case studies (n=12) of of farms; 4) Assist in nullifying farm cotton female cotton farmers, focus groups (n=5) debt; and 5) provide agricultural loans directly involving rural women in cotton growing to farmers. Recommendations for communities in both the Kulob and Qurghon- programming: 6) Assist rural women-headed dehqon teppa zones of Khatlon province, and the households in acquiring private review of relevant literature. (‘peasant’) farms; 7) Expand and strengthen village community based organizations The major findings and confirmations (CBOs); 8) Facilitate participation of rural of the study are: The far majority of cotton women in non-cotton economic activities; 9) farm workers in Tajikistan are women Set stage for production and marketing of (estimated at 300,000-plus); the massive organic and/or fair trade Tajik cotton and economic migration of the mostly rural male products; 10) Promote women’s rights population of Tajikistan to primarily Russia training for women and men; 11) Develop (estimated at 700,000) has substantially education fund for both sexes with focus on increased the number of female-headed rural girls and women; 12) Enlighten public of households in Tajikistan; land reform is cotton-consuming countries; 13) Establish corrupted and gender unfriendly; the majority women’s environmental clubs in cotton- of rural households lack land-use and farm- growing regions; 14) Generate income and share certificates; nearly no property is in the solar energy for and by rural women; 15) Co- name of women; local authorities regularly sponsor international forum on ‘Human bypass women when making decisions on land Security and National Security in Transitional reform and farming; women are generally States’; 16) Establish a ‘development radio’ in
Khatlon; and 17) Co-sponsor the 2006 1 The views expressed in this report are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Oxfam GB. Livelihood Survey of Women, Households, and Farms in Tajikistan (n=1,000-1,500).
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Page 1 I. Executive Summary 3 II . Introduction 12 III . Research Problem 13 IV . Research Questions 14 V. Methodology 17 VI . Analysis & Findings 20 VII . Recommendations 28 VIII . Conclusions 30 Appendices: 30 Case Studies 47 Interview Questions 48 Map of Tajikistan
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II. Introduction current mode of cotton production in Central Asia to “political repression, economic stagnation, widespread poverty and environ- 3 “To tell Tajik farmers not to grow mental degradation”. That description is not far away from what is occurring with cotton is like telling a German: ‘Don’t Tajikistan and its cotton sector today. produce Mercedes Benz’!” 2 Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of this remark by an Cotton cultivation is known to have existed in Central Asia for more than a international aid worker in Tajikistan, there 4 are some truths in it: Tajikistan and Germany millennium. Its production in Central Asia both generate good amounts of foreign for export also goes back several hundred currency earnings from the export of cotton years. However, the level of production, using and Mercedes Benz (read ‘luxury vehicles’), modern irrigation techniques, only ballooned in the 20 th century after the takeover of the respectively. They both have been involved in th the production of the said commodities for region by the Bolsheviks. In the 19 century, many decades and have thus gained technical Imperial Russia had already noticed the expertise and what many assume as significance of Central Asia as a source of comparative advantage in cotton cultivation cotton when its imports of American cotton had been disrupted during the 1860s by the and luxury vehicle production, and naturally 5 feel, if anything, that an objective of their US civil war. Thus, from the very beginnings respective economies should be to generate of the Soviet Union, cotton was viewed by its higher and higher export earnings from these socialist planners as a strategic commodity in goods. that the expanding economy of the USSR demanded large supplies of it for civilian, Still, despite similarities, there are far state and military purposes. And in the too many differences in the above comparison. absence of sufficient domestic supplies, cotton Two main points of departure are that unlike would again have had to be imported from the Germany’s obsession with continuous mainly capitalist West, chiefly the US, at improvement of the end output of luxury exorbitant world prices. To counter such a vehicles, what appears to be its vying for scenario, Central Asia and to a lesser extent quality over quantity, Tajikistan’s cotton the Caucasus increasingly became the source industry has concentrated on quantity per se, of raw cotton for the Soviet Union. 6 with the goal seemingly being to maximize revenue from the production of more cotton, The cultivation of cotton in the still and in the process doing so at the expense of largely virgin territories of the southern tier taking precious land away from food crops. Soviet republics including Tajikistan was done via expansion of massive irrigation systems In line with the objective of within the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea maximizing export revenues, and as opposed watersheds in the early to mid part of the 20 th to Germany were workers’ rights are a cornerstone of business practices, Tajikistan’s generated wealth from the export of cotton 3 ICG, The Curse of Cotton: Central Asia’s Destructive fibre (one of its two major revenue earning Monoculture , Asia Report No. 93, February 28, 2005. export commodities, after aluminium), at least
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century. By then, cotton production under the (GOT) and the Islamist-dominated opposition. Soviets had thus taken industrial proportions Since then, the macroeconomy has seen and transformed the local economies of impressive growth rates; the average annual Central Asian states, including Tajikistan, and growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) supplied the rest of the USSR with a highly was equivalent to nearly 10% during the five desired raw material, which since the Soviet year period 2000-2004. That said, the era, has often been referred to as ‘white gold’. economic dip which Tajikistan encountered, Similar to the Soviet years, the leaders hitting near rock bottom in the mid-1990s, as of the post-communist transitional cotton results of the three blows of Soviet producing states of Central Asia have disintegration, independence and civil war, continued to regard cotton as a critical element has made the economic recovery extremely of their respective national economies. In the difficult and time-consuming. Despite double- case of Tajikistan, though having produced digit growth in the GDP of recent years, the less than 10% of the total cotton of the USSR, size of the national economy is still less than its cotton was known in the Soviet era as one 60% what it was during the Soviet era in 1989 of the highest yielding in the Union. And (Fig. 2). though unit yields are no longer impressive, Agriculture continues to play a pivotal cotton production is still considered as role in the economy of Tajikistan, with about ‘strategic’ by Tajikistan’s leadership: a quarter (27%) of the country’s national income being attributed to it. 9 Tajikistan has Increasing cotton production is a strategic one of the highest rates of rural-based element of agricultural reform in Tajikistan. It will lead to higher exports, increased populations in the world with nearly three- quarters of its population (73.5%) living in government budget, higher [foreign] invest- 10 ments, and use of excess rural labour .7 rural areas. Furthermore, the agricultural –President Emomali Rahmonov sector is estimated to employ as much as 1.2 million people, representing near two-thirds (64%) of the working population. 11 Cotton Fig. 1 - Tajikistan's GDP Growth 10% 10% 11% (Source: EIU, IMF) 8% 9% undoubtedly has been an important component 5% 2% 4% 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 of the economy —though the ‘strategic’ nature
-2% 19971 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 of cotton for Tajikistan is a matter of debate. -4% -7% As is, the cotton sector is the largest employer -13% -15% of rural labour force. 12 According to
-28% government figures, there are a total of about -30% 887,000 hectares (ha) of agricultural land in
Tajikistan. 13 Over 80% of the agricultural Production levels of raw cotton during cropland in Tajikistan is irrigated. 14 Cotton, the post-independence period have not reached grown only on irrigated land, is thought to the record highs of the Soviet era when cover over a third of the total cropland of Tajikistan was, for example, able to produce Tajikistan, over half (56%) of all the irrigated just over one million metric tonnes (MT) of 8 cotton in 1980 alone. Still, Tajikistan’s 9 EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit), Country Profile economy has begun to grow since 1997 (see 2004 - Tajikistan , London, 2004. Fig. 1), the year which a peace accord was 10 GOT, State Statistical Agency, Tajikistan in Figures , signed between the government of Tajikistan Dushanbe, 2004. 11 EIU, Country Profile 2004 … op. cit. 12 World Bank, Tajikistan – Welfare Implications of 7 GOT, State Statistical Agency, Khlopkovodstvo v Cotton Farmland Privatization: A Poverty and Social Respubliki Tadjikistan [‘Cotton Production in Impact Analysis , June 24, 2004. Tajikistan’] 1998-2003 , Dushanbe, 2004. 13 GOT, State Statistical Agency, Mentaqahoi Jumhuriye 8 Qulomali Partoev, Boinazar Borozov & Rahmon Sodi- Tojikiston [‘Regions of the Republic of Tajikistan’], rov, Dasturho Oidi Rushti Pakhtakori [‘Lessons on the Dushanbe, 2004. Growth of Cotton Production’], GOT, World Bank & 14 Word Bank, Irrigation in Central Asia: Social, Hamkori Bahri Taraqqiyot [‘Development for Coopera- Economic and Environmental Considerations , By Julia tion’], Dushanbe, 2004. Bucknall et al, Washington, 2003.
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land, 15 and produces over 40% of all crop constitute nearly 60% of all arable land in yields. 16 During 2005, Tajikistan reportedly Tajikistan 20 and as of early 2005, there were had 267,320ha of land under cotton reportedly 23,560 dehqon farms in the cultivation, with around 62% (167,000ha) of country. 21 it being in the Khatlon province to the south. 17 There is confusion, however, as to the process of land reform and, among other 100% Fig. 2 - Tajikistan's GDP 91% 2004 things, on the types of dehqon farm and its Index 1989=100% 98% (Source: EIU, IMF) associated land-use rights. In a meeting with 64% 53% 58% the head of a newly formed 367ha farm — 1989 46% 44% 34% 37% 34% 48% what was found to be a collective dehqon 39% 40% 33% 35% farm— it was determined that the farm director, himself, did not know the type of Cotton farming in Tajikistan employs farm he was directing. 22 Furthermore, due to about a third of all farmers or 400,000 people the peculiarities of Tajikistan’s laws where the (over three-quarters being women) albeit at state owns all land, farmers, even of the extremely low wages and under conditions ‘private’ variety, are mere ‘land users’ rather which have been described as farm workers than ‘land owners’. And due to the system of having become “indentured labourers”. 18 Cotton is mostly (estimated 75%) produced on large collective joint stock farms, and the rest on private farms —both of which the (K. Abdullaev and S. Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary government considers as forms of dehqon … op. cit. ). 19 (‘peasant’) farms. Today, dehqon farms 20 OSCE, “Tajiks’ promised land: A farm of one’s own,” By Soren W. Nissen, OSCE Magazine 1 (3): 4-7, July 2004. 15 World Bank, … Welfare Implications of Cotton … op. 21 Meeting with an official of the Dehqon Farmers cit. Association of Tajikistan Dushanbe, March 31, 2005 . 16 FAO, Tajikistan, Major Agricultural Indicators , 22 Sakhovat is a farm situated near the town of Dushanbe, Oct. 2002. Qurghonteppa in the Western zone of the Khatlon 17 Meeting with senior GOT official in the Ministry of province and used to be part of a larger (2,300ha) Soviet Agriculture, Dushanbe, March 15, 2005. collective farm ( kolkhoz Nuriddin Safarov). Land and 18 agricultural reform broke down the kolkhoz into seven ICG, Tajikistan: A Roadmap for Development , Asia properties. One piece became the Sakhovat collective Report No. 51, April 2003. dehqon farm, which has a total area of 367ha —93% is 19 Mass collectivization began in Tajikistan in 1929, sowed in cotton and the rest used as rangeland. Sakhovat when the Soviets combined agricultural land holdings has 750 members (211 males and the rest females) and into large collective farms known as kolkhozy ( kolkhoz , 75 fulltime workers. There are 70 cows on the farm singular, a contraction of kolectvitnayo khazaistvo or which according to the farm director, were purchased ‘collective household’ or ‘collective farm’). Thousands separately by him from the kolkhoz . Much of the of farmers throughout the USSR deemed in possession agronomic inputs are obtained through the middleman of too much land ( kulaky ) were deported to labour camps company Tamer, to which the kolkhoz owed or exiled to other parts of the Union. For nearly 60 US$362,000 or US$358/ha. After privatization, years, Moscow invested heavily in Soviet collective Sakhovat took over 40% of the debt. According to the farms. By 1996, five years after the dissolution of the farm director, Tamer makes a profit of nearly 100% Soviet Union, Tajikistan reversed the still existing Soviet from the sale of agronomic inputs to the farm. It makes policy and adopted the law, On Dehqon (‘Farmer’ or additional profits by purchasing and processing the raw ‘Peasant’) Enterprise, thus allowing peasants to formally cotton and then selling the cotton fibre to exporters at leave the still socialist kolkhozy and sovkhozy (definition world market prices. The farm director claimed that with below) and become private farmers. Still, according to the money that he himself invests in Sakhovat’s farming Tajik law, the state is the ultimate owner of the land, but operations (currently about US$15,000), he expects to farmers can have lifetime use of agricultural dehqon make a profit margin of about 10% plus his wages. He farms and even pass it on to their heirs. [ Sovkhoz is the claimed that during the Soviet era, the kolkhoz , which Russian acronym for sovetskoye khoziastvo (‘Soviet the current collective farm belonged to, produced cotton farm’)] After kolkhoz (where members were paid a yields of around 4.0MT/ha. In 2005, he hopes to shares of the farm’s product and profit according to produce yields of 2.0 to 2.7MT/ha. According to a amount of work performed), sovkhoz was the second brigade leader present, cotton yields in 2004 were most important agricultural entity in the Soviet Union. In 2.75MT/ha. According the farm director, each contrast to the kolkhoz , the sovkhoz property did/does household member of the farm has on the average a not belong to its members, but to the state. As such, share and certificate of 47 sotiqs or about one-half of sovkhoz farms were/are considered as state enterprises one hectare of the farm. (Meeting with Anonymous, and its workers as state employee agricultural workers] dehqon farm director, Khatlon, March 26, 2005).
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production, one finds more ‘workers’ on increase in the area under cotton cultivation, agricultural lands than ‘farmers’. 23 however, has been at the expense of precious
12 Fig. 3 - Tajkistan's Cotton Exports irrigated land previously or potentially 2 3 (US$ millions) 19 7 2 devoted to food crops. This can partially be 5 7 16 (Source: EIU) 16 15 15 28 seen by the fact that as cotton production has 2 1 11 93 92 gradually increased in recent years, cotton 71 yields have remained steadily below 2MT/ha. Whereas in 1982 the average yield for the cotton produced in Tajikistan was 3.28MT/ha, 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 by 2004, the average yield had slumped by 42% to a mere 1.9MT/ha 25 (Fig. 6). At the Fig. 4 - Cotton Export Earnings same time, among other things, potato yields as % of Total Exports 28% 27% (Source: EIU) appear to be on the rise, likely due to 22% 24% 20% 19% 18% 18% favourable precipitation rates of recent years 14% 12% 11% and attention put by households and development NGOs to the subject (Fig. 7). Furthermore, increasing farm priva- 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 tisation has also gone hand in hand with an More than 90% of Tajikistan’s cotton unending cycle of financial problems, is exported, with cotton exports (all in the corruption and a ballooning farm debt—nearly form of processed cotton fibre) having all of the latter being due to cotton. Although accounted for a total of US$162m of earnings cotton accounts for the far majority of the in 2004 (Fig. 3). Cotton exports have on the labour force in the country, about one-fifth of average made up less than one-fifth (17%) of export earnings, and a good chunk of the Tajikistan’s exports in the past five years country’s GDP, it still is burdened by an (2000-04) — see Fig. 4. accumulating debt owed by collective and private farms to a series of domestic and Grain production reached an estimated international intermediaries and financiers. record high of 884,000 tonnes in 2003, mainly due to abundant rains; and cotton production The ‘cotton debt’ began in 1996 when rose to an estimated 580,000 tonnes in 2004 the first cotton credits (of $60 million) by —nearly reaching the government production international banks encouraged by the Tajik plan of 610,000 tonnes (Fig. 5). government via a special legislation were extended to the National Bank of Tajikistan Fig. 5 - Raw Cotton and Grain Production (NBT) by Credit Suisse First Boston and 900 in thousands of metric tonnes Grain (Source: EIU) 750 Cotton involving the global cotton conglomerate, 26 600 Swiss-based Paul Reinhart. According to the 450 MT '000 MT 300 director of the Private Farmers Association of 150 Tajikistan, as of January 2005, the total cotton 0 debt was estimated to have reached 3 4 5 6 7 98 99 00 01 02 03 990 991 992 99 99 99 99 99 9 9 0 0 0 0 27 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2004 2005 2006 US$257m. This debt is likely to have According to the agriculture minister, the government hopes to see cotton production 25 Meeting with senior GOT official in the Ministry of reaching 850,000 tonnes by 2015. 24 Though Agriculture … op. cit . there have been some improvements in cotton 26 Ikhtiyor Ashurov, First Deputy Minister of Agricul- yields in recent years, increases in cotton ture, Development of Agriculture in Tajikistan: Peculia- rities and Prospects , Undated. output have also gone hand in hand with 27 Meeting with an official of the Dehqon Farmers increases in the area under cultivation. The Association of Tajikistan … op. cit . [The district committees of the Dehqon Farmers Association of 23 Tajikistan are supposed to be societies and forums for Meeting with Director of AAH, Dushanbe, March 18, private farms and farmers, and should be taking an 2005. advocacy role on behalf of private farmers. In reality, 24 Asia Plus, Tajikistan--Economic Perspective 12 (17), however, it appears that the majority of the Dehqon Dushanbe: December 20, 2004. Farm Associations throughout Tajikistan are de facto
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surpassed US$280m by July 2005. The cotton Fig. 6 - Cotton and Grain Yields 3.0 Metric tonnes / hectare 2.10 MT/ha debt is owed both by dehqon farms and state (Source: EIU) Grain farms to various middlemen firms normally 2.5 owned by politically powerful and well- 2.0 connected businessmen. 28 These middlemen, 1.5 1.0 “financial intermediaries” 29 , or ‘futurist’ 1.88 MT/ha Cotton companies ( futuristho , in plural, as they are 0.5 0.0
0 1 2 6 7 8 9 0 3 commonly referred to in Tajik), in turn, 9 9 9 0 99 99 borrow funds from the private Tajik bank, 1 19 19 1993 1994 1995 199 199 1 19 20 2001 2002 200 CreditInvestBank (itself borrowing from NBT). Acting like loan sharks, the ‘futurists’ Fig. 7 - Potato Yields in Tajikistan 20 metric tonnes / hectare 17.7 have routinely charged the dehqon farms and (Source: GOT) 15.5 15 12.9 farmers interest rates as high as 50% per 11.7 11.9 10.5 annum on agronomic inputs and on the 10 accumulating farm cotton debt. 5 The companies and the associated 0 cotton ginneries operating in the cotton 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 growing districts have conveniently divvied up (The existence of corrupt elements in Tajikistan for themselves into zones, in which the cotton industry of Central Asia is nothing they exercise monopoly in the sale of new. During the Soviet era of the 1970s, for agronomic goods to the farms and monopsony example, it is known that in Uzbekistan an (where there exists only one buyer in the entrenched “cotton nomenklatura ” had taken market) when purchasing the resulting cotton shape, with “cotton barons” dominating the from the farms. Utilizing unfair practices, “agro-industrial cotton complex”, controlling these ‘futurists’ are known to regularly jack every step of cotton from its production to up prices for inputs, such as seeds, fertilizers, marketing. 30 What may be new phenomena is pesticides, and fuel, which they sell on credit the accumulating cotton debt. One theory goes to local farms in exchange for the cotton that as opposed to many East European post- harvest. With the existing quota system of de communist states, opposition to economic facto mandatory production of cotton being reforms in Tajikistan [also in Uzbekistan and enforced via threats from local and central Kyrgyzstan] had not been from the masses or government authorities, the lack of options in ‘below’, but rather from the ‘above’, by an procurement of inputs, and the exaggerated established quasi-authoritarian regime and interest rates charged by the middlemen, the entrenched patronage system of the dehqon farms’ cotton debt continuously rise, government and technocratic elites with vested even during years of bumper harvest. interests in the status quo. 31 Thus, when economic and land reform began in Tajikistan, the same elite used the new system in its own favour, with accompanying lack of transparency, corruption, and cronyism, which has extended into the cotton sector). The majority of the cotton debt is representatives of the middlemen investors, often owed by farms in the Khatlon province. 32 developing adversarial relationships with the very dehqon farms that they are supposed to represent]. 30 28 Information on the specifics of the middlemen or M. Spoor ,“Transition to market economies…” op. cit . ‘futurist’ companies is scarce. What is known is that 31 Pauline Jones-Luong, Political Obstacles to Economic there are at least 21 Tajik firms, which extend credit to Reform in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan: cotton farms in exchange for the processed cotton Strategies to Move Ahead , Lucerene Conference of the harvest. It is widely acknowledged that influential CIS-7 Initiative, January 20-3, 2003. government officials and their kin are full or part-owners 32 C ARE , “Impact of Farm Debt on Privatized Farms: A of several of these companies. Comparison of National Bank Debt Data (Sept. 2004) 29 GOT, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper , Dushanbe, and the SLC Farm Privatization List”, Dushanbe, March June 2002. 21, 2005.
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Based on figures from early 2005, 33 Khatlon’s provision of in kind benefits in the form of share of the cotton debt is likely to be as high fuel for cooking and heating and sometimes as 80% of total (about US$208m by June distributed wheat and vegetable products are 2005), with another US$49m (19%) owed by key factors in keeping cotton workers on the farms in the northern Soghd region, and field. At the end of the harvest season, cotton US$2.6m (1%) by farms in the Regions of workers are given the right to clear the fields Republican Subordination (RRS; areas of the dried cotton bush or stalks ( ghuzapoya ), surrounding the capital city, Dushanbe). The an efficient source of fuel. In fact, according cotton debt is nearly split in half among to a 2003 Action Against Hunger (AAH) government and private farms — 47% of the survey, 95% of cotton working households in total cotton debt is estimated to be owed by Khatlon identified their main incentive for private farms and the remaining 53% by state working on the cotton fields to be the mere farms. 34 State collective farms have routinely chance to collect ghuzapoya .36 tagged the per hectare debt owed by their farm A phenomenon which has taken hold to any land being transformed into the in post-communist Tajikistan is the changing increasing number of private and collective role of women, including the marginalization dehqon farms. Dehqon farms in Vose district of women into the least economically profit- of Khatlon, for example, are known to be able sector of the economy. According to indebted at an average of US$1,050/ha. government statistics, for example, whereas in Indications are that the GOT has 1995 there were nearly three times as much attempted to increase cotton production women as men (300:100) in the health sector, through extensive use (more land) as opposed as of 2003 that figure had dropped by half to intensive use (higher yields) of arable land (150:100), and whereas a decade ago there and due to the general deficiency of tractors, were more women than men working in the harvesters and other machinery, this extensive banking and finance sector (120:100), that expansion of land sowed in cotton and the ratio supposedly had dropped substantially by increase in the total raw cotton output has 2003 (to about 50:100). A sector which has been done by the reliance on cheap rural seen a rapid rise in the proportion of women labour of mostly female farm workers. Many to men has been that of agriculture: Whereas a cotton workers lament about not being paid at decade ago the government reports over twice all, or on time or sufficiently. Wages of cotton the number of men having worked in workers during the planting and preparatory agriculture as women (40:100), the ratio rose seasons are extremely low (and often none to 140:100 by 2003 (see Fig. 8). The real existing), anywhere from S1.2-7.0/month ratio of the number of female to male workers (US$0.40-2.00) per worker. If cotton fibre is in the agricultural sector is likely much sold in the world market for about 70 cents/lb higher. In the cotton sector, for example, (US$1.54/kg) 35 or the rough equivalent of based on anecdotal and qualitative evidence, about US$0.51/kg of seed- or raw cotton, the conservatively speaking, the ratio of the rate paid in 2004 in Tajikistan to farmers and number of female farm workers to male farm labourers for picking of raw cotton by hand is workers is likely no less than 300:100 or even estimated to have been in the range of 6-10 as high as 500:100, with around 300,000 or dirams/kg (2 to 3 cents or US$0.02-0.03/kg), more out of the estimated 400,000 cotton equivalent to less than 5% of the sale price. workers being women. If anything, it appears Given the generally trivial wages, the that in general women in post-communist Tajikistan have been steadily relegated to the lowest paying sectors of the economy, 33 Tajik Avesta , “Tajik cotton growers owe over 200m including that of cotton farming. dollars to investors,” Reported by BBC International Reports (Central Asia) , April 28, 2005. 34 Meeting with Director of CARE International, Dushanbe, March 18, 2005. 35 EIU, World Commodity Forecasts: Industrial Raw 36 AAH, Land Reform in Tajikistan: From the Capital to Materials , London, July 2004. the Cotton Fields , Obie Porteous, Dushanbe, Oct. 2003.
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Female Farmers Focus Group A or documents indicating that the now collective dehqon farm is partly owned by them. One woman in the group claims that most of the women in the village are uneducated: “ Pedaro modaremon nameemondan khondani ” (‘Our parents would not allow us to go to school’). Nonetheless, most of the women have had some amount of schooling, at least through elementary or middle school. The women are asked about their thoughts on the problems of working in the cotton fields. One claims to have earned a mere S7 (less than US$2) in one year as her total wages (aside from money earned from picking cotton) from the collective farm. “I have eight mouths to feed and 4 sotiqs Focus group in Chorboq, Kulob (0.04ha) of land does not suffice!” says another. Regarding work on the newly formed collective dehqon farm and on the cotton fields, one woman horboq (‘Four Gardens’) is a village in the C says: “Nothing has changed. Just like when under Vose district of the Kulob zone of Khatlon the USSR, we do as they tell us!” Another says province in southern Tajikistan. According to that they have no alternative but to work: “We are official figures, the village has 3,308 residents unhappy [ delkhonok ], but we have to work.” A scattered among 450 households. There are 576 female pensioner, 66 years old, says: “I used to children under 5 years of age and 1,299 residents earn 90 roubles [about US$180] each month during under 16. Less than 10% of the households (39 in the Soviet era. I have the metals to prove my worth total) are headed by women. The village is part of as a worker veteran. But now I get paid S12/month a collective farm, which has 1,860ha of land, out [US$4] and though I am retired, I still have to of which 1,200 (65%) is devoted to cotton. work!”
Another 660ha (480ha irrigated and 180ha rainfed)
is used for food crops. The collective farm also has When she asked about her overdue cotton 120ha of land which it rents and has 60ha of wages owed to her by the collective dehqon pastureland as well. Ten women and one man farm, a woman was told by the farm (aged approximately 30 to 67) have gathered in the leader: home of a mahalla (‘neighbourhood’) leader for an impromptu focus group session with visiting Oxfam GB workers. “You have 10 sotiqs [0.1ha] of presiden- Chorboq is one of the villages in which Oxfam has tial land, why should I give you wages ?! assisted in the formation of a community based ” organization (CBO), a formal group made up of representatives of the village who work on The farm leader further told her: alleviating some of the problems encountered by the village, such as that of lack availability of “Ghuzapoya kefoyast ! potable water, health issues, and the general [‘Cotton stalks should suffice you!’] poverty encountered by the majority in the village. ” Chorboq’s CBO has been registered in the district offices as an NGO and has been formally named as The group also has general complaints about the Umed (‘Hope’) by its members. The CBO has quality of life and hunger in the village. One nearly completed the construction of a potable woman tells others about the case of a neighbour water delivery system for the village. One CBO under stress from poverty and low wages of the member claims that the group has achieved what it collective farm: “He said: If I had a gun I would has on the water project despite the general lack of kill my children! I can’t bear seeing them hungry ,” assistance extended to it by the local authorities. she recounted him telling her. “During the Soviet era, we never had problems with hunger”, says None of the women present has a private dehqon another. “ Az zindagiye past zood pir shodem !” farm. They are all members of what used to be a (‘This miserable life has made us old!’), is another kolkhoz and is now a collective dehqon farm. None comment. “Our lives are getting worst, not of the women in the group has an idea of what better,” says one. amount of the collective farm share is hers or is assigned to her. They do not have any certificates
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There are also agronomic problems in the village, house. Indeed, there appears to be outright such as the insufficiency of inputs as in fertilizers, repercussions for criticizing the local authorities. pesticides and water. “One shovel costs S7 The woman tells the story of the kolkhoz head (US$2.3), someone complaints. “How can we ordering the police to beat up a woman who had clean the irrigation canals [when we don’t have talked openly about corruption involving some money to buy even a shovel]?” A woman in the authorities. “People are scared to protest,” says group claims that the farm leaders continue to give another woman. “They threaten us with violence them empty promises. She recounts: “ Go ahead or threaten to take our presidential land away”. and pick cotton this year, we’ll give you cooking Some feel abandoned: “ Mo besohib hastem ,” (‘We oil as wages !, they told us, but I have yet to have no protector’). receive what they had promised last year.” When asked what crop they would prefer to To supplement their extremely low incomes, cultivate on the collective farm, one woman almost all the women also work as occasional responded: “We want to sow wheat to feed our labourers in nearby private dehqon farms that hire families.” Another says: “Cotton is taken and sold them especially during the cotton picking season. by the rich. We only work for them”. Arable land “The private farm is better than the kolkhoz ,” says is hard to come by in villages as Chorboq, forcing one of the women. She claims that she can earn many to find ways and places to grow food crops. double the wages when working for the private “All the rangeland surrounding [the village] is now dehqon farm. Furthermore, the group estimates wheat fields. We even sow the cemetery with that as much as 70% of the young men from the wheat!”, says one woman. “Even land for burying village is either working in Dushanbe or Russia to our dead is scarce these days.” The man in the earn better wages. Some send money back to group rhetorically asks: “ Moro az in pakhta che relatives in the village. foida ast ?” (‘What use is this cotton to us?’). He The only man in the group says that the wages paid further adds: “If we don’t solve the problem of by the farm and the agricultural land of 4 sotiqs hunger, we won’t be able to solve other problems assigned to his household by the farm for planting either”. food crops such as wheat and vegetables is not The group is asked about suggestions which it may sufficient to feed his family: “I have to work as a have for improving their lives. A woman proposes day labourer in Dushanbe even though I have two that a sewing factory be opened in their village so university degrees!” he laments. At least one as to create employment among women. “We need woman in the group also complains that 300ha of small factories,” is a comment from another. They their collective farm was given to a private farmer. also want the collective farm to increase wages and “They sold it to the kolkhoz leader’s relative!”, she pay wages on a timely and monthly basis. One of says. Another woman says that when villagers the CBO members present says that the village apply for private dehqon farm, the contract they would like to request a tractor from Oxfam. “We have to sign indicates that they have to take over don’t have the means to do so on our own.” When the accumulated debt of the farm, currently at the research team is ready to leave, one participant US$1,000/ha. says: “ Rahmat baroye onke az dili mo bokhabar
gashted !” (‘Thank you for seeking out our When asked whether they had attended any problems!’). of the collective dehqon farm meetings, the women said that they are never invited to such events, including the annual gathering where the farm head, heads of the jamoats and the district head are present: “They have never discussed the affairs of the farm with us. ” Regarding labour and land laws, the man present in the group says that “the country’s laws are not implemented in the rural areas”. Regarding the rights of women, one woman says: “Though the rights of men and women [are supposedly] equal [in Tajikistan], we have not seen anything of it!” Another woman says that if one criticizes the Young cotton workers in Yovon, Khatlon authorities, they will send the police to one’s
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41 Fig. 8 - Female:Male Workforce Ratio in-four women in Tajikistan. Another report No. of working females/100 working men claims that during 2002-2003, 344 women 375 committed suicide and 433 women were 300 Health Workers 42 Farm Workers murdered by their partners. The 1999 WHO 225 Banking & Finance study found that women in the Khatlon 150 province, where most of Tajikistan’s cotton is 75
Femal : 100 Male Ratio Male100 Femal: grown, reported significantly higher rates of 0 violence perpetrated by family members 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 during their adult life (59%) as compared to Tajikistan is very much characterized other regions of the country. They also as being traditional, putting significant reported higher levels of sexual violence as emphasis on customs and beliefs, much of perpetrated by strangers (32%) as compared to which are “conservative and patriarchal” in other regions of the country. 43 37 nature. This is more so in rural communities According to a 2003 study by the as compared to their urban counterparts. World Bank, the rates of absolute poverty in Among other things, according to a 1999 Tajikistan remains significantly high with World Health Organization (WHO) study, nearly two-thirds of the population (64%) 82% of the women surveyed in Tajikistan living below poverty, and with Tajikistan agreed that it is “better to have sons than remaining as the poorest among the daughters”. About two-thirds of all women Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). 44 surveyed thought that it its more difficult to The World Bank also estimates that poverty bring up daughters, that boys take care of rates in the two main cotton-producing parents when they grow old, and that boys provinces of Soghd and Khatlon stand at 66% bring more income to the family as compared 38 and 78% of the rural populations respectively. to girls. Furthermore, it is thought that many The Bank estimates 75% of the extreme poor female collective farm workers view the farm of Tajikistan to live in the two said provinces. leaders in the same vein as bygone subjects of 39 The same report states that despite the fact “feudal lords or monarchs”. And ironically, that during the five-year period 1999-2003 despite what appears to be massive both production level of Tajik cotton and the underpayment and blatant exploitation of farm price it fetched on the world market rose workers, often involving farm leaders, significantly, this “higher value of output” did according to a 2003 survey of 500 women not benefit the Tajik farmers. 45 And a 2003 working on collective farms in Khatlon, when AAH survey of cotton working households asked whom they would refer to for protection 40 (n=1,000) in 50 villages of Khatlon province if need be, 60% said the farm leader. found that over a quarter (26.3%) of cotton Among other social ills brought about workers reported receiving no wages. 46 by what seems to be the lingering or even The World Bank admits that despite rising poverty in rural Tajikistan (much of it the theory of comparative advantage, which in the cotton growing regions) is violence against women. One survey on the condition 41 Asian Development Bank (ADB), Women and Gender of women in the country has indicated that Relations in Tajikistan , Country Briefing Paper, Jane likely as a result of economic stress, violence Falkingham, Consultant, Manila, 2000. at home, whether physical, psychological or 42 International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central economic, is reportedly occurring against one- Asia, and North America , Report 2005, Vienna, 2005. 43 WHO (World Health Organization), Violence Against 37 Swiss Cooperation Office, Psychosocial Support (PSS) Women: WHO 1999 Pilot Survey in Tajikistan , Working Services in Tajikistan: An Assessment , Sacha Alderisi, document, Workshop on Violence against Women in Consultant, SDC, Dushanbe, June-July 2001. Tajikistan, Dushanbe, March 29-30, 2000. 38 WHO, … Pilot Survey in Tajikistan … op. cit. 44 Itar-Tass , “Tajikistan poorest of CIS states - World 39 IWPR, “Tajikistan: Farm ‘slavery’ exposed,” By Bank report,” By Valery Zhukov and By Galina Nargis Zokirova, IWPR Reporting on Central Asia , No. Gridneva, Oct. 28, 2004. 309, Aug. 20, 2004 No. 207, May 27, 2003. 45 World Bank, … Welfare Implications of Cotton … op. cit. 40 IWPR, “… Farm ‘slavery’ exposed …” op. cit. 46 AAH, Land Reform in Tajikistan … op. cit.
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would approve of Tajikistan growing cotton equation, women and women-headed over other cash and food crops, “[cotton] is households are suffering the most. not currently profitable to farmers” and According to the United Nations Fund “cotton farmers are considerably worse off for Women (U NIFEM ), nearly one-fifth (18%) than those who grow non-cotton crops” in the of all households in Tajikistan are headed by country. This, the Bank thinks, is due to women. 51 That figure is likely to be much lowered yields and lack of farmer choices in higher for rural areas, where large numbers of timely ginning (of the raw cotton), and sale the male population have left their village and marketing of the resulting cotton fibre and seeking employment usually in Russia, and for is in contrast to the better conditions available the Khatlon province where over 20,000 to farmers who grow food crops in women were left as widows as a result of the Tajikistan. 47 Due to the hopelessness felt by 1992-97 civil war with estimated fatalities of many cotton farmers who feel they do not 50,000 for the country as a whole. benefit from their harvests even during years Indeed, women and women-headed of plenty, there is evidence of growing apathy households in Tajikistan have become among them. Increasingly many of the male disproportionately poorer than their male population of mostly cotton farming counterparts. A 1998 USAid-funded house- communities, for example, are migrating to hold, farm and small business survey found Russia and other parts of the CIS to seek 48 that female-headed households had on the work. This phenomenon in turn has added to average 30% less income, less farm animals, the burden of rural women who have less land, and less economic opportunities as increasingly found themselves as heads of compared to male-headed households. 52 households, being responsible for raising their Another study (in 2000) found households children and taking care of their households headed by women to be 29% more likely to be while not being able to make a living wage poor than those headed by men. 53 working as farm workers under the highly To comply with the central inequitable conditions of the cotton industry of government’s plan of exceeding 600,000 Tajikistan. tonnes of raw cotton production in 2005, local authorities in Tajikistan have agreed to III. Research Problem increase the area sown to cotton by an extra 23,000ha for a total area of 293,000ha of 54 Despite the supposed profitability of irrigated land. According to a women’s NGO director: “The increase of area under the cotton sector, cotton farmers in Tajikistan remain “chronically poorer” than farmers 49 education-wise by having to work in the cotton fields. growing food crops. Indeed, it appears that Often schools and local authorities make no objections in the growing macro economy of Tajikistan and children working in the cotton fields. This is despite the increasing cotton production have gone hand fact that Tajikistan’s constitution makes it illegal for state educational institutions to “divert the attention of in hand with the extensive rather than pedagogical staff from fulfilling their direct intensive use of agricultural lands, often at the responsibilities [or] to involve schoolchildren [and] students in the [agricultural] field or in any other works expense of food crops, through a de facto not connected with the educational process” (IOM and cotton quota enforced by government US Department of State, Children in the Cotton Fields , authorities, and by use of cheap and mostly January 2004, p. 8). female and even child labour. 50 In this 51 U NIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women), Gender Profile of the Conflict in Tajikistan , 2003.
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cotton production will not improve the discourage other economically viable conditions [of rural women nor alleviate alternatives aside from the harvesting of poverty]. This policy does not favour the cotton. 59 They also are known to prevent farmer. It rather increases poverty, and leads villagers from plowing their food crop plots to lack of [sufficient] food stocks for the (mainly wheat) in the fall season until the people of Tajikistan.” 55 cotton fields have been completely harvested. 60 The poor condition of rural women and More importantly, economic growth and their households in Tajikistan is due to their increase of cotton output in recent years has lack of access to resources, including sufficient gone hand in hand with what appears to be a land, and thus lack of empowerment. The issue deteriorating health and wellbeing of the same of unequal economic opportunities and access rural communities who engage in the growing to land for women is acknowledged —at least of cotton. According to a 2004 nutrition survey on paper— by the GOT: The April 30 th , 2004, conducted by the Ministry of Heath and AAH, Resolution No. 196 indicates that “women, rates of acute malnutrition of children under regardless of the announced legal equality, five years of age increased to an average of have unequal access, compared to men, to 7.6% for Tajikistan as a whole as compared to economic resources, including land.” 56 Still, 4.7% in 2003. Furthermore, a World Food according to official statistics, in Khatlon Programme (WFP) survey of 5,000 house- province as of January 2004, a mere 3.4% of holds through-out the country found that one- dehqon farms, or 240 out of a total of 7,173 quarter of the population (27%) or nearly two farms, were headed by women. Similarly in million people are either food insecure or very Soghd province, only 5.1% of dehqon farms, vulnerable to being so. Another survey says or 239 out of a total of 4,724, were female- that, despite official statistics, a drop of 17% headed. 57 The actual figures of female-headed was found in cereal production in key locations farms are thought to be even lower. of the country in 2004 as compared to 2003.61 The far majority of farms in Tajikistan are in essence required to devote as much as IV. 65-100% of their irrigated land to the Research Questions production of cotton. Furthermore, during the This rapid assessment research was harvest season, the amount of raw cotton harvested is updated nightly on the state news undertaken to develop an understanding of the broadcast on television, with details of province impact of cotton production on the poverty and district harvests. An NGO worker has and vulnerability of female-headed households sarcastically asked: “Why does the government in cotton growing areas of Tajikistan, and to mobilize the population during the planting and develop and influence Oxfam GB’s position on harvesting season of cotton, but does not the issue of female cotton workers, to make inform the same public of the financial gain of informed strategic programme choices and to formulate points of evidence-based policy cotton sales? Where does the money from the 58 advocacy. It has attempted to answer the sale of cotton fibre wind up?” Local following: 1) Is there a relationship between government officials, in turn, often force cotton production and rural poverty in businesses shut during peak harvest season to Tajikistan? 2) What are the thoughts of rural women engaged in cotton production? 3) What 55 Meeting with director of a local women’s NGO, are the ideas of stakeholders and experts on Dushanbe, April 1, 2005. the issue of gender and cotton in Tajikistan? 56 GOT, Supplement to the State Programme “Principal Directions of the State Policy on Providing Equal Rights and Opportunities for Men and Women in the Republic 59 IWPR, “Tajik cotton harvest in the balance,” By of Tajikistan for the Period of 2001-2010” Access of Zafar Abdullaev, IWPR’s Reporting on Central Asia , Rural Women to Land, Resolution No. 196, April 30, No. 322, October 19, 2004. 2004, p. 17. 60 Oxfam, Community Situation Indicators , Bulletin No. 57 GOT, “… Directions of the State Policy on Providing 11, Kulob, Tajikistan, Nov.-Dec. 2003. Equal Rights and Opportunities …” op. cit. 61 Donor’s Principles in Tajikistan, Press Release , 58 Anonymous, Tajikistan, March 2005. March 15, 2005.
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and 4) What can Oxfam do in relation to both The study chose to focus on the policy and advocacy in order to address the Khatlon province for field data collection for issue of cotton production as affecting women several reasons: The province is relatively in Tajikistan? That is: What can be done to close to the capital city; the far majority of the improve the lives of rural households, many cotton produced in Tajikistan is from Khatlon, of which are women-headed, in the short to 62% of the total raw cotton production of long run in Tajikistan? 538,000MT in 2003 (Fig. 9) and 60% of total of 558,000MT in 2004. Khatlon also has the majority of the area devoted to cotton in Fig. 9 - Geographical Distribution of 62 Cotton Production in Tajikistan Tajikistan (61% of total 284,000ha in 2003). Total 2003 = 538,000 tonnes (Source: GOT) RRS Khatlon 54,829 MT 334,063 MT 10% 28% 62% SUGHD 148,466 MT
V. Methodology
This study has primarily utilized qualitative analyses. As such it has used a combination of a) expert interviews, b) case studies, c) focus groups, and d) literature review in a three week period in March and April 2005 to arrive at a quick overview of the relationship between poverty, gender and cotton production in Tajikistan. Field data was gathered by a five-member team employed by Oxfam. Meetings (n>25) were conducted with NGOs; an international financial organization; government officials at the national, province, district and jamoat levels; and community leaders at the village level. Most importantly, interviews were conducted with female farmers as one-on-one meetings with results recorded as case studies in the report (n=13) and via focus groups composed mainly of female cotton workers (n=5), with meeting summaries also reported hereby (see Appendix One). The combination of the said qualitative research techniques were utilized to Female cotton workers in Khatlon formulate policy and advocacy recommend- ations for improving the lot of rural women cotton workers and their families in the cotton 62 In 2004, about 60% of raw cotton production was in growing areas of Tajikistan. Khatlon province, 29% in Soghd province, and 11% Hissor valley to the south of the capital (Asia Plus, Tajikistan-Economic Perspective 12 (17), Dushanbe: Dec. 20, 2004).
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Female Farmer Case Study No. 1
Safargul, from Navobod village of Kulob district, is 41 years of age, is married and has three children. She has been working in the cotton fields since she was 12 or 13 years old. There are six people in her family. She is a member of a collective dehqon farm—what she still refers to by its Soviet socialist term of kolkhoz (and we will do so as well in this case study). Everyone in the family, according to Safargul, works on the cotton fields. Safargul’s wages as a cotton worker range from S10 to S20 (US$3.3 to US$6.6)/month. During the cotton picking season, each kilo of raw Child labour: Hauling cotton stalks for the household cotton picked earns anywhere from 5 to 9 dirams Furthermore, [several years past] I found that I had (US$0.02-0.04). Safargul claims to have a work developed a kidney stone. It was only this year that contract with the collective farm. The family’s they took it out. I owe the doctor S1,000 (US$330) income comes from working on the farm and by for the operation”. [This sum was charged her husband’s earnings as a part-time mechanic. illegally by the doctor, since the city’s government During the Soviet era, Safargul says that her wages hospitals are not supposed to charge patients.] as a kolkhozchi (Soviet farm worker) were Though Safargul says she is eligible for pension as satisfactory. Since independence and the civil war, a person with disability, the same doctor is not however, things have gotten gradually worse. willing to write a letter certifying this fact, due to Safargul asks if there is any help coming to her the money she owes him. village. She says that each year the head of the “Who will hear the cries of the kolkhozchis ?,” kolkhoz changes. She claims that she has not Asks Safargul. “If it continues like this, my kids received most of the pay owed to her from picking will become thieves and highwaymen due to lack cotton in 2004. Even though she wrote a letter of wages. We have no right to grow what we want. asking for her back pay and tried to submit it to the We have to do as the kolkhoz tells us”, i.e. to grow head of the kolkhoz , he was willing neither to cotton. The family would like to grow wheat on receive her nor her letter. She’s been told in the the presidential plot, but they cannot put sufficient past by the kolkhoz head, that he cannot pay her, time and effort on the land due to obligations with since the farm is in debt. If the decision of what to the kolkhoz and other work. As a result, the family grow on the collective farm was that of Safargul’s, has been threatened by the authorities to take its she says she would grow wheat and vegetables. presidential land away. In addition to the small When Safargul is asked: “Why do you work on the presidential plot of land, the household has 10 cotton field?,” she responds: sotiqs (0.1 hectare) of land attached to their house. Interviewer: “There is no other work in the village. And our husbands don’t have the money to “Did you have this much land ten years ago ?” migrate to Russia. The kolkhoz is our only source of income. We work because we have to. We have no alternative. “No, but we were not hungry either. what ” is the use of having land if we live in such When asked about the main problem of her miserable conditions ” household, Safargul says: “Our main problem is ? [lack of sufficient] food.” Safargul’s children also work on the cotton fields. “I have to force my kids Going abroad to earn money is a risky option for to work in the field,” she says. “ Zadeh zadeh be Safargul’s household. She says that one of her pakhta meferstonam ” (“I have to beat them to send neighbours sold her cow and left for Russia using them to the cotton field”). She says that there are the money and has not been heard from since. some health issues as well: “I’ve been in charge of “How can my life be improved, you ask? I don’t irrigating one hectare of land. Due to working in have anything to tell you, really. I don’t know. It’s the cold fields, I have not been able to conceive been my destiny to live as such.” again.
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Khatlon is also a good study site in Vose 65 districts (highest yielding), and that there are major differences within the Farkhor district 66 (lowest yielding) 67 of the province: The eastern and western zones of Kulob zone of Khatlon; and Bokhtar 68 district Khatlon, Kulob and Qurghonteppa zones respectively, differ significantly in terms of 65 Vose district of Khatlon province, established in 1957 soils, type of dominant agriculture (dryland (then named ‘Aral’ and renamed Vose in 1960), is vs. irrigated) and composition of people named after a Tajik historic hero, Abdulvose or Mullo (Kulob is relatively homogenous in its Voesecha, who rose up against the rule of the emir of Bukhara and was executed by the order of the emir. makeup, whereas Qurghonteppa is one of the Vose is 3,600 sq. km in size and is a distance of 184 km most heterogeneous regions of the country). 63 from Dushanbe and 18 km from the city of Kulob. (K. Abdullaev and S. Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan … op. cit. ). The district has 10 jamoats and a population of about 150,000. 66 According to the Farkhor district agronomist, Mr Said Tojiddin Shoyev, the district has a total of 13,656ha of land devoted to cotton, with another 10,200ha being sown in grain (mostly wheat). There are also 902ha of presidential land, 92% being irrigated, which have been distributed to individual households. Much of the land is in the form of private dehqon farms —estimated to be around 650 individual farms. Possibly a mere 20-25 of such private dehqon farms are in the name of women. Only two government-owned collective farms remain in the district: The animal husbandry farm of Hissor and the savkhoz Sarkhor. On the whole, Farkhor district has had a mounting debt since 1997 due to cotton cultivation of US$17m, equivalent to about US$500-1,500/ha of land. The debt used to be owed to the middleman The selection criteria of the individual ‘futurist’ company of Karimzod. The local ginnery, districts to visit in Khatlon (Fig. 10) were Neekruz, however, has recently taken over Karimzod’s done on the basis of the ministry of debt, and now the farmers have to deal with Neekruz instead. In the view of district agronomist, the cotton agriculture’s 2003 data of district cotton debt is only likely to rise due to the overcharge in inputs yields. It was decided that at least two districts which the middlemen incur. For example, the (the highest yielding and the lowest yielding in middlemen profit from the sale of fuel, but buying large amounts during the period of low demand in January and terms of per hectare raw cotton yields) would selling the same in times of high demand to the farmer in be visited per zone of Khatlon. Thus, the October at inflated prices. Furthermore, local banks will research team proceeded to the Kulob 64 and not lend money to farms and farmers who are already indebted, hence the farmers would need to deal with the same middlemen. And due to high government land taxes, relatively expensive inputs, and deteriorating yields, cultivating the land in grain may even be 63 In the 1930s, many immigrants were enticed by the unprofitable. The only way for the farmers to get out of Soviet authorities to resettle in the fertile irrigated lands debt, says Mr Shoyev, would be for farmers to be able of the Vakhsh valley (what is now the Qurghonteppa to borrow low interest loans directly from the banks for zone of Khatlon province). During the early turmoil of use in securing agronomic inputs, bypassing the the Tajik civil war in 1992, the city of Qurghonteppa middlemen. As much as 70% of the young male and many villages with all or majority inhabitants from population of the district is thought to be working abroad of Gharmi or Pamiri origins were burnt by mostly the (Meeting with Mr Said Tojiddin Shoyev, Farkhor Kulobi-dominated pro-government ‘popular front’ District Agronomist, Farkhor, March 25, 2005). militias. Most of the 50,000 deaths resulting from Tajik 67 The districts of Kulob and Vose, with average raw civil war (1992-97) are thought to have occurred in the cotton yields of 2.47 MT/ha and 2.26 MT/ha, Qurghonteppa zone of Khatlon province. respectively, had the highest registered raw cotton yields 64 Kulob district is part of the Khatlon province and is per hectare in the Khatlon province in 2003 (and thus in situated in the Yakhsu river valley. Formed in 1930 with the Kulob [or Eastern] zone of Khatlon province as a territory of 273 sq. km., Kulob district has a well). Farkhor district registered the lowest yield of raw population of 73,800 (1998). The distance between the cotton (1.35 MT/ha) for the Kulob (or Eastern) zone of center (also ‘Kulob’) of the district and Dushanbe is 202 Khatlon (GOT, State Statistical Agency, Mentaqahoi km. Kulob receives annual precipitation of around Jumhuriye Tojikiston [Regions of the Republic of 550mm. The main occupation of Kulob’s population is Tajikistan ], Dushanbe, 2004). agriculture, primarily cotton production, wheat and 68 Bokhtar district was formed in 1980 and was known as vegetable farming, in addition to livestock breeding. ‘Komunisty’ up until 1992. It is located in the Total arable land of Kulob district was reported at Qurghonteppa (or Western) zone of Khatlon province 18,717ha as of 1998 (K. Abdullaev and S. Akbarzadeh, and is part of the Vakhsh valley. Bokhtar is 633 square Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan … op. cit. ). km in size and in 1999 had a population of nearly
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(among the highest yielding) and Beshkent 69 estimated 400,000 farm workers in the (lowest yielding) 70 district of the Qurghon- country). 73 Child labour is also used teppa zone of Khatlon. At least one village in extensively by cotton farms especially during the Shahritus 71 district of Khatlon, where a the cotton picking season; female dehqon farm director resides was also visited. On the way back to Dushanbe, one The incidences of female-headed households random focus group was also conducted in the in rural areas are much larger than what is Yovon 72 district. generally assumed. Incidences of female headed households in the Khatlon province is often attributed to the brutal civil war of VI. Analysis & Findings Tajikistan (1992-97) which resulted in 25,000 women having become war widows. From throughout the country, there have also been The major findings and confirmations were: massive numbers of mostly rural male population (between 600,000-800,000) having The far majority of cotton farm workers in migrated to Russia and some other republics, 74 Tajikistan are women (roughly 300,000 or thus relegating more women to become more female farm workers out of the total household heads. The migrant workers, as a whole, are thought to be at the minimum 169,000, a mere 11% of which was composed of urban dwellers. Bokhtar’s population is made up mainly of sending back to their families in Tajikistan both ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks and has a total of four over $280m/year worth of remittances. 75 Up jamoats . The distance between the district centre, the to 90% of the Tajik migrants working abroad Somoni township (formerly Oktyabrsky until 1998) to Dushanbe is 113 km and 16 km to the city of are men, 10% are women, with 2-3% being Qurghonteppa. Bokhtar receives annual precipitation of rural women; 76 between 200-300 mm. Total arable land in Bokhtar district is close to 25,000ha (Abdulloev and Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary … op. cit. ). 73 Women comprise an estimated 75-80% of farm 69 Beshkent has officially changed name into ‘Nosir workers in Tajikistan (Meeting with an official of the Khosrav’, but is rarely referred to by its new name. It is Dehqon Farmers Association of Tajikistan … op. cit .). the warmest and driest district in all of Tajikistan, with Another source cites anecdotal evidence of 85-90% of all average July temperature of 31 degrees and an average cotton workers in Khatlon being women (Oxfam, annual precipitation of 140 mm (Abdulloev and Community Situation Indicators: Khatlon Oblast , Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary … op. cit. ). Bulletin No. 14, May-June, 2004). 70 In 2003, Bokhtar district registered the highest yield of 74 According to a study funded by IOM, 84% of all Tajik raw cotton (2.16MT/ha) among the major cotton migrant workers going abroad are in Russia, with growing districts of Qurghonteppa zone of Khatlon another 5% in Uzbekistan, 3% Kyrgyzstan, 1% province, and Beshkent registered the lowest Kazakhstan and 1% Ukraine. The same study estimated (1.19MT/ha) (GOT, State Statistical Agency, Mentaqa- that 26% of all Tajik households had at least one hoi Jumhuriye Tojikiston [‘Regions of the Republic of member of their family working abroad, and that about Tajikistan’], Dushanbe, 2004). one-fifth (18%) of the adult population aged 15 and up 71 Shahritus (‘City of Tus’) district, formed in 1930 and — equivalent to 632,000 people— were abroad. An part of the Khatlon province, is located in the southwest estimated 85% of all the migrant workers are male (IOM corner of Tajikistan, bordering Qunduz district of and Sharq Scientific Research Center, Labour Migration Afghanistan and Surkhan Darya district of Uzbekistan. from Tajikistan , Saodat Olimova and Igor Bosc, July Shahritus district is 2,336 sq. km in size, with a 2003). population approaching 90,000, more than 80% of 75 The actual figure is likely much higher since this whom are rural dwellers. The distance from Shahritus’ appears to be the amount sent via official banking administrative capital by the same name to channels only (Meeting with an official of IOM, Qurghonteppa is 112 km and to Dushanbe 195 km. Dushanbe, March 18, 2005); According to President Shahritus has a subtropical climate, with temperatures Rahmonov, there are only 300,000 Tajik nationals exceeding 45 degrees centigrade during the summer working abroad in the CIS countries, but that they sent (Abdulloev and Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary … as much as US$500m of remittances to Tajikistan op. cit. ) annually (World News Connection, “Tajikistan: 72 Yovon district, part of the Khatlon province, was President Says Labor Migrants' Annual Remittances formed in 1934 and is located in the dry lowlands on the Amount to $500 Million,” June 16, 2005). right bank of the Vakhsh river. It covers a territory of 76 The average wage of Tajik migrant workers abroad is 976 sq. km and is divided into 5 jamoats and two towns, about US$200-300/month. Anywhere form 85-90% of with a population of around 140,000. Total arable land Tajik migrant workers do not possess their legal in Yovon is around 2,800 ha. Yovon’s capital, by the employment papers ( Ibid. ). Anecdotal evidence suggests same name, is 58 km from Dushanbe (Abdulloev and that an estimated half of all Tajik migrant workers Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary … op. cit. ). abroad send significant amounts of money back to their
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Land reform is corrupted and a widening large numbers of socialist farms having been gender disparity exists with regards to land ‘privatized’, an unknown number of rural access .77 Among other things, the majority of households have yet to be given their rural women do not have any property in their presidential land certificates and nearly all names. Despite clear evidence, however, female farm workers have no farm share some key government officials deny the certificates ; local authorities continue to existence of such problems in Tajikistan;78 exploit the rights of rural women via exerting power and control over their entitled Though most rural households have been agricultural lands, using them as bargaining given ‘presidential lands’ as early as 1995 chips to maintain low wages and unfavourable (when a government decree allowed for the working conditions. 80 As such, the rural distribution of as much as 75,000ha of population does not have a sense of land formerly state-owned lands for use by ownership ; thousands of rural households), 79 and despite Local authorities regularly bypass rural families in Tajikistan, and much as one-fifth do not send women when making decisions such as anything. assigning land, providing inputs and making 77 Among other things, local officials often charge farmers from US$300-700 to process the shares of a deals with investors. Female members of household into a private dehqon farm (IWPR, “Tajik collective dehqon farms are nearly never farmers face mounting debt,” By Valentina Kasymbaeva, invited to farm meetings where key decisions IWPR’s Reporting on Central Asia , No. 370, April on the future of their land are made; 2005). 78 In a meeting with the a high level representative of the Ministry of Agriculture in Khatlon (Qurghonteppa, Rural women are kept in the dark about March 29, 2005), he did not think that there are any their human rights and land rights ; most are significant shortages or problems in rural areas for not aware that land reform is taking place in women and their households or that female farmers are treated in any way differently and have less advantages Tajikistan, that the former kolkhoz and than their male counterparts. He suggested that any sovkhoz have or are being transformed into research that international organizations conduct with private and joint stock collective dehqon rural folk result in false information, since in his opinion rural folk grossly exaggerate their problems. He farms, that they are entitled to farm shares or suggested that the people we had spoken to were giving stocks, and that they have the right to request Oxfam wrong information or that our questions were their land shares to be separated from the “confusing to them”. The government official denied that Tajik farmers are experiencing any form of poverty and cited his international travels as evidence that Tajik farmers are doing better than many other farmers worldwide: “The poorest household in Tajikistan is living better than [farmers in many countries which the official has visited, such as China]. He said that Tajik households are able to sell one cow for as much as generally been distributed to nearly all rural households US$400-500 and that many households have up to ten based on household size. Normally, households are cows. When told that based on the experience and field allowed to farm their presidential land as they wish. visits of the Oxfam team, it appears that many Presidential lands were originally, according to the law, households have no cows and do not have the funds to intended to be distributed primarily to households who purchase milk for their children, or that many cotton have less land to begin with, and were not to be workers toil merely for the resulting dried cotton bush, distributed to members of existing dehqon farms. the official responded: “International NGOs are all Presidential lands are not transferable and households corrupt! … They [the female farmers] don’t work for the are to have a special certificate indicating their right to cotton stem… you are talking nonsense [ beehoodeh ]”. use the give land (ARD/Checchi, Land Legislation in the On the issue of the poor migrants currently living in the Republic of Tajikistan , draft, By Rene Giovarelli, Beshkent region of Khatlon, the government official Commercial Law Project, June 10, 2004). said: “They are lying to you [regarding their lack of 80 In the Qabudian district of Khatlon, for example, there sufficient income]! Do they expect to build a palace in a are many cases of local people not having their land week?!” In his opinion: “Cotton is profitable to certificates. In one known case, where a household head farmers”. He also did not think that there is a was ill and was not able to tend to her/his land, the local government quota for cotton: “We don’t force anyone to authorities took over the land and gave it to another. In grow anything!” Regarding the accumulating farm debts, another case, a household toiled and cleared a rock-filled the official said: “If you’re going into debt, then grow land and made it ready for cultivation, after which the 40% vegetables and other crops and only 60% cotton”. authorities took over the land and gave the household a 79 The 75,000ha of ‘presidential lands’ were distributed similarly rock-filled land instead (Meeting with an NGO by a presidential decree during 1995-97. They have director, Shahritus, Khatlon province, March 28, 2005).
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collective farm as private or part of smaller but any of the variety of food crops such as collective dehqon farm; 81 wheat, corn, potatoes, and vegetables, used for immediate consumption and sale in the Though most female cotton workers have local markets; cotton, under current gender heard that the farm they work on is indebted, unfriendly and economically skewed condi- they do not know nor are they offered details tions, is of no comparative advantage to about the extend and nature of the cotton debt ; female farm workers and produces extremely low financial benefit to farming households; Most women and their households work on the cotton fields since they do not have other (Though the World Bank through the IFC is choices. A large segment of female farmers de facto subsidizing cotton production via its work to collect the meagre end-of-the-year ‘model’ private cotton farming projects in raw cotton picking wages (about 3 cents or Tajikistan, occasionally the Bank has also US$0.03/kg) and the reward of collecting acknowledged that at the time being cotton is ‘ghuzapoya’ (dried cotton stalks) used for fuel not a profitable crop for Tajikistan’s farmers in cooking and heating, bartered for food and that the various “distortions” associated 82 crops or sold for cash; with cotton farming have in fact lead to cotton farmers being “considerably worse off than The condition of female cotton workers and those who grow other crops”. The Bank calls cotton farms is not unlike that of ‘bonded this finding “remarkable,” based on the labour’ and ‘financial servitude’ , where the economic assumption that “small family farms only alternative available is to work harder in [which grow food crops should logically] earn the hope of producing more cotton to feed considerably less than farms growing the one’s family and pay off an always- country’s main cash crop.” 83 The Bank has accumulating cotton debt; also criticized the insufficient farmer authority Contrary to the GOT and international due to undue control and influence of loan financial institutions, cotton is currently not a brokers, gin owners, farm managers, and ‘strategic’ or profitable commodity for local governments. It has calculated that losses Tajikistan. And the potential ‘cash crop’ and in the ginning process alone have resulted in the crop of choice for the far majority of rural annual losses in the range of US$63-105m, women and farming households is not cotton equivalent to 4-7% of Tajikistan’s GDP. And the current environment of production, according to a Bank document, has led to very 81 AAH’s 2003 survey of households in Khatlon found than 85% of the male and female respondents claimed low cotton yields, estimated at around not to know anything about the land laws of Tajikistan 1.9MT/ha, far lower than the expected (AAH, Land Reform in Tajikistan … op. cit. ). And a 2.8MT/ha, and thus has resulted in further 2004 C ARE International survey on land reform awareness among rural communities in Tajikistan opportunity losses of as high as US$204m conducted in November 2004 (n=577) showed that annually). 84 despite the fact that it is mainly women who work on agricultural lands, they are nonetheless less informed than men regarding the existence of land reform in the The miserable situation of rural areas of country. Only 58% of the women surveyed by C ARE (as Tajikistan, in conjunction with widespread opposed to 68% of the men) claimed to have knowledge government collusion on the issue, cannot go of land reform taking place in Tajikistan. The same survey showed that of all the people surveyed, men and on indefinitely. Failure to properly address women combined, only 29% were aware that under the issues of cotton quota, land reform, and Tajikistan’s land laws, ‘members of collective farms’ rural women’s rights by the GOT may have priority to distributed lands (C ARE Intl., Report on Land Reform Process in Tajikistan , November 2004). eventually lead to increased social and 82 According to a 1999 household survey in Tajikistan, economic aggravations. firewood is considered the most common source of fuel used by households when cooking, reported by 43% of 83 households, followed by cow dung (17.5%). Dried World Bank, Republic of Tajikistan Poverty cotton stem was the third highest reported (12.3%) main Assessment Update , Rep. No. 30853-TJ, P. 18, Jan. 6, source of fuel for cooking (ADB, Women and Gender 2005. Relations in Tajikistan , Country briefing paper, Jane 84 World Bank, Tajikistan–Welfare Implications of Falkingham, Consultant, April 2000). Cotton … 2004 , op. cit.
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VII. Recommendations GOT to provide the conditions for Tajikistan’s farmers to grow the crop of their choice. For Advocacy : 2- Increase farm minimum wage closer to a 1- End the de facto cotton quota . Despite living wage . Agricultural workers in both the denials by the GOT and lack of an existing state farms ( kolkhozy and sovkhozy ) and law on the mandatory nature of cotton private farms (private and collective dehqon production, there remains a de facto quota on farms) are likely the lowest paid workers in the amount of land devoted to cotton Tajikistan. Most cotton workers toil up to six cultivation on irrigated lands, a quota imposed to eight months per year in the cotton fields by the highest leadership of the state and often under extreme temperatures and directed by the ministry of agriculture, unhealthy conditions, earning at most S20 provincial state agricultural representatives, (less than $7) per month between March and province and district leaders, jamoat chairs July and 9 dirams (S0.09 or 3 cents) per kilo and leaders of state and collective dehqon of cotton picked during the cotton harvesting farms. The imposition of the cotton quota is season between August and December. Some unconstitutional and opposed by nearly all are not paid at all prior to the cotton picking private farms and cotton workers, NGOs, and season, but non-the-less are expected to work international aid and financial community in on the cotton fields. The GOT should enforce Tajikistan. 85 Indeed, based on Article 17 of minimum standards of labour rights and the Constitution of Tajikistan (“The rights of wellbeing of workers by among other things dehqon farm and its members”), farming is a mandating an increase in farm wages and private affair and “ dehqon farms and its punishing those farms which refuse to pay or members have rights”, such as “to are in serious arrears in workers’ wages and independently farm on the land.” 86 The earnings payments. international community must pressure the 3- Promote democratic rule of farms . Insist that collective dehqon farms and the remaining 85 Among others, for example, the US ambassador to state-owned farms abide by democratic rules Tajikistan has officially said that “the command- of governance and among other things: economy practice of regional and local governments Distribute shares, certificates and dividends to forcing farmers to plant cotton really must cease” ( US Fed News , “U.S. envoy discusses economic reform, their members; hold regular meetings wherein stability in Tajikistan, May 12, 2005). In the same farm leadership is elected via secret ballot, the speech, he is quoted as having said that “the best affairs of the farm are openly discussed, and solution [to the agricultural problems in Tajikistan] may be effective land reform that allows farmers to make where all farm members (male and female) their own decisions about what to plant, where to get are encouraged to attend and express their their inputs, and where and when to sell their crops. This is how agriculture works in most countries of the opinions. world. Above all, the command-economy practice of regional and local governments forcing farmers to plant 4- Assist in nullifying farm cotton debt . Much cotton really must cease. … I recognize that this is of the cotton debt has been accumulated prior controversial, because of the vested interests who benefit exponentially from treating farmers as slaves. The vested to land reform, with what had been sovkhoz or interests and the futures companies would lose the kolkhoz debts being passed down to the new guaranteed sources of incomes that they put in foreign collective of private dehqon farms. Some, bank accounts. But the farmers of Tajikistan would begin to prosper - if they were empowered to make their including the chairman of the state land own independent agri-business decisions” ( Federal committee, have proposed for at least the Information & News Dispatch , US Dept. of State, portion of the debt which existed prior to “Tajikistan: Economic development and opportunities,” 87 Text of speech delivered by US Ambassador Richard E. private use of lands to be forgiven. A Hoagland, Tajik Academy of Sciences, May 12, 2005). considerable portion of the accrued cotton And a recent report by C ARE recommends to the GOT debt may also be legally not binding, based on that: “Cotton quotas should end immediately” (C ARE , Impact of Farm Debt on Privatized Farms … op. cit. ). 86 Land Committee of Tajikistan, The Law of the 87 OSCE, “Breaking down barriers to land reform: Well- Republic of Tajikistan ‘On Dehqon Farm’ , P. 11, informed farmers are the key,” By Soren W. Nissen, Dushanbe, 2003. OSCE Magazine 1 (3): 8-9, July 2004.
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the fact that that many individual farmers village affairs. 90 In line with the general appear not to have singed agreements, with poverty in rural Tajikistan, however, the terms and conditions of agreements having majority of female-headed households have been conducted orally or having changed as few if any sources of stable income. For many the investor has seen fit. Legal means should such households, economically efficient use of be made to nullifying individual farm debts land is among the few logical solutions and which can be proven to have been tools of empowerment. Knowledge of the accumulated illegally. 88 After having nullified means to acquire one’s land in the complex the illegal portions of the cotton debt, GOT and seemingly closed system of land reform could purchase the remaining debt (which may and privatization in Tajikistan is essential. It is be less than US$100m). important to provide land rights and women’s rights training to rural women and assist those 5- The GOT should provide agricultural women-headed households desiring their own loans directly to farmers. The GOT should private dehqon farms to acquire the same via provide loans through a Tajik bank such as legal, logistics and financial assistance. AgroInvestBank at reasonable rates (3-5%) A C ARE International survey directly to farmers. All middlemen, ‘futurists’ conduced in November 2004 showed that 85% loan sharks, and companies charging of all women and 73% of all men desire a unreasonable rates and practicing monopsony private farm plot for their household. 91 Of the in cotton purchasing and monopoly in the nearly 24,000 dehqon farms in Tajikistan, provision of agronomic goods to farmers however, only 4% is registered to women, should be outlawed and, if need be, even and a mere 1% is thought to actually be in
prosecuted. control of women. 92 Some NGOs and IOs are already engaged in projects focusing on fair 93 For Programming : land reform. Oxfam should utilize the expertise of one of its NGO partners, Zan va 6- Empower women-headed households Zamin (‘Woman and Land’) in this arena. Zan through acquiring land use rights and private va Zamin has been successful in the ‘dehqon’ farms . Women’s empowerment has promotion of private dehqon farms and been defined as their “ability to make strategic empowerment of women through rights life choices”. Exercising choice, in turn, trainings and assistance in acquiring deeds to entails the three inter-related dimensions of private farms. 94 The director of another local “resources” (of both material and social NGO, Cooperation for Development, suggests varieties), “agency” (the ability to make decisions, bargain, and negotiate), and “achievements” (the desired “well-being outcomes”). 89 90 FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), A Gender Land ownership or the right to use Perspective on Land Rights , Undated. land is a key economic and social asset, which 91 C ARE , Land Reform Process… 2004 , op. cit. provides women with both economic and 92 ICG, The Curse of Cotton … op. cit. political power and allows for increased 93 Since 2004, for example, OSCE along with A CTED have been involved in a project of monitoring the participation of women in household and privatization of 40 formerly government-owned and run office. The goal is, among other things, to ensure transparency and upholding of gender equity principles in the privatization process (OSCE, “Fairness for 88 Meeting with an official from the Dehqon Farmers’ farmers: OSCE to monitor 40 farms,” OSCE Magazine Association of Tajikistan … op. cit. According to the 1 (3): 7, July 2004). official, his agency, through a USAid legal project, has 94 In one project in the Hamadoni district of Khatlon, been successful in nullifying US$180,000 of cotton debt Zan va Zamin was able to assist in the persuasion of the involving 40 contracts owed by dehqon farms to district land committee to allow the division of a investors. collective farm (larger than 300ha) into 38 parcels of 89 Nalia Kabeer, “Resources, agencies, achievements: private dehqon farms, with 12 of the ensuing farms Reflections on the agency of women’s empowerment,” being assigned to female-headed households (Meeting Development and Change 30: 435-64, 1999. with women’s NGO director …April 1, 2005, op. cit. ).
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that women should be assigned to 30% of project which Oxfam can undertake would to dehqon farms in the country. 95 be survey the number and locations of such unused and damaged greenhouses, conduct an 7- Expand and strengthen village community opinion survey of the villages which hold such based organisations (CBOs) . The experiment properties, determine the legal status of said of Oxfam with CBOs and Mountain Societies properties, and attempt to acquire them for Development Support Program (MSDSP, the female-headed households, CBOs or women’s largest NGO in Tajikistan) with village cooperatives for use in growing lemons and 96 organizations (VOs) has proven the viability other food and cash crops that can be sold in 97 of the mahalla (‘community’). If not done local markets. Other possibilities would be to already, such mahalla organizations should provide credit and training for producing and contain representative number of women as marketing dried fruits 98 , fruit juice, and honey members. As of early 2005, about a third made by women-owed businesses for sale in (37%) of the membership of the Oxfam- the local bazaars. monitored CBOs was composed of women. Due to the significance of women’s labour in 9- Set stage for production of ‘Organic’ village and rural communities, that figure and/or ‘Fair Trade’ Tajik Cotton . Despite the could be upped to 50%. many problems associated with cotton production, due to its still lucrative nature for 8- Facilitate participation of rural women in powerful elite which benefit from its non-cotton economic activity . There are a production and sale and due to the variety of up and coming economic international financial institutions’ backing and opportunities in Tajikistan where those who de facto subsidies, cotton’s prominence in participate will reap good amounts of financial Tajikistan’s agriculture will likely remain for rewards. Among such opportunities are: food long to come. One project which Oxfam could processing, cash crops; information techno- get involved with is exploring the possibilities logy, alternative energy production, housing of producing and marketing ‘Organic (and/or) construction, and eco-tourism. It is vital that Fair Trade Tajik Cotton’. There is a project in rural households be prepared or at the Kyrgyzstan with the aid of the Swiss NGO minimum be made aware of non-cotton Helveltas, 99 where Swiss investor Paul strategic sectors of the economy. Oxfam can Reinhart is supposedly purchasing organic seek a project that would provide counselling, cotton at fair trade prices from a collective training, and credit to rural communities, with farm. And though not labelled as such, there an emphasis on women in generating income is also what can be characterized as ‘fair from non-cotton economic activities. trade’ cotton production taking place nearby Khujand in the northern Soghd province of Among other things, for example, Tajikistan with the investment of the IFC and communities in rural Khatlon during the the Swiss government. 100 The project has been Soviet era used to produce large quantities of lemon in greenhouses. The civil war damaged much of the said greenhouses. A productive 98 Among the companies in Central Asia that are producing dried and packaged fruits and vegetables is Orabik, a firm which supplies the Uzbekistan Airways, 95 Meeting with local NGO director … April 1, 2005, among others, with roasted peanuts and raisins produced op. cit . in Uzbekistan. There is no reason that similar products 96 MSDSP has established over 450 VOs throughout cannot be produced and marketed by businesses owned Badakhshan province and Gharm valley where currently and operated by rural women of Tajikistan. Contact MSDSP’s rural projects are located (Meeting with info: Orabik, No. 38 Byuk Ilak Iyul Street, Tashkent, MSDSP officials, Dushanbe and Obi Garm, July 2004). Uzbekistan. Tel: 162-1234. 99 97 Mahalla , ‘neighborhood’ or ‘community’ is an Meeting with ICG representative, Dushanbe, March informal institution found throughout Central Asia, 19, 2005. normally run by local elders, whose task is to oversee 100 The World Bank’s International Financial traditional feasts (weddings and funerals), conduct Corporation (IFC) and the Swiss government’s State community affairs and seek assistance for members Secretariat for Economic Affairs (S ECO ) have been (Abdullaev and Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary … funding a project in Khujand wherein they are acting as op. cit. ). the investors for at least one collective dehqon farm
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successful in that the farms have produced facilitate the sale of fair trade cotton directly 830kg of cotton fibre/ha (equivalent to about to existing investors in the country. The 2.5MT/ha of raw cotton), 40% higher yields incentive for such businesses would be that than the average cotton production in the they could market their items in the Soghd province. The project farms have also destination countries as being inline with fair been able to pay off part of their cotton debt, trade principles and thus generate a premium pay their workers on time, and purchase price for their good. needed machinery. 101 10- Promote women’s rights training for Oxfam could do the following: a) women and men . UNIFEM has been influential Explore the possibility of producing organic in creating eleven district task forces in cotton, where among other things the Tajikistan responsible for assisting rural principles of low till and application of women with legal advice on land rights. organic fertilizers are used; b) Hook up with Research by Panorama, a Tajik NGO, has the Swiss-IFC project as a purchaser of ‘Tajik shown that where there are district task Fair Trade’ cotton and use the cotton fibre to forces, there are also more female-headed produce added value products (such as Tajik dehqon farms. Furthermore, district land handicrafts) produced by women’s workshops committees (all of whose members are men) throughout the country with products to be which have received training on women’s marketed in major cities of Tajikistan and rights and gender equality are apparently more eventually made for export; 102 c) There are gender-friendly than others. 104 Oxfam, in some Tajik and international investors, such conjunction with U NIFEM , can provide as Jovani, 103 a US-Tajik joint venture, district-wide training on women’s rights and involved in garment and clothing land rights to rural women and to jamoat manufacturing in Tajikistan. Oxfam could leaderships and district authorities in cotton growing regions of Tajikistan. Similar involved in cotton production. The farm has 1,095 share trainings can be given to the business holders among 140 farming households or entities of community and even the so called ‘futurist’ multiple households. The project has been successful in 105 that the collective farm members appear to be generally companies. satisfied with the process wherein inputs are supplied on time, dividends are distributed fairly and timely, and the 11- Develop education fund focusing on sale of raw cotton will also likely take place on a timely rural females. Despite minor improvements in and fair manner. The IFC is attempting to duplicate this project at the Yovon district of Khatlon (Meeting with recent years, indications are that schools IFC representative, Khujand, April 5, 2005). Though throughout Tajikistan are perpetually deficient the Swiss-IFC project appears to be successful and the in their physical infrastructure, qualified resulting cotton can be marketed as ‘fair trade’, it is highly questionable if such projects can be sustainable teachers are becoming scarce, and a gender without international intervention, capital and subsidy. and income gap is taking place among the Furthermore, such projects are prejudicial in favor of cotton production and appear to encourage the continued school-age population. The disparity is the involvement of the Tajik financial and political elite in highest in the university level where women the cotton industry. They are also expensive compose a mere 25% of the undergraduate development projects: The IFC-SECO model private cotton farming project, launched in 2001, has a capital requirement budget of US$750,000 and a technical 104 assistance budget of US$2.42m for the two-year period Meeting with U NIFEM representative in Tajikistan, of 2004-05 alone (IFC and S ECO , Tajikistan Farmer Dushanbe, March 16, 2005. Ownership Model , Donor report, March 2005). 105 This recommendation is inline the GOT’s own stated 101 Hans Woldring, Sohibkor [‘Worker’], “Povishenie policies. A GOT resolution in 2004 seeks to expand rentabelnosti proizvodstva khlopka v Tadjikistane” economic opportunities and equal access to property [‘Increasing cotton yields in Tajikistan’] 5 (10) June 2, ownership for women and recommends to “increase 2004. awareness of women of their economic rights”, facilitate 102 women’s “access to loans” including the expansion of Several well-known Western clothing companies, the existing micro-credit programs, develop “intermedia- such as Nike, Georgio Armani, and Patagonia, carry tion programs” for sale of agricultural products, and clothing made of organic and/or fair trade cotton conduct regular research and monitoring of gender (Health , “Earth-friendly fiber,” May 2003). equality in the sphere of land rights in Tajikistan (GOT, 103 Meeting with ICG representative … March 19, 2005, “… State Policy on Providing Equal Rights and op. cit. Opportunities for Men and Women…” op cit. , p. 18).
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student population. 106 A recent World Bank was able to be placed through government report confirms that Tajikistan will not meet quota in a university. Rural folk also complain the millennium development goal (MDG) of that the placement process is corrupted, eliminating gender disparity in its elementary normally granting the children and relatives of and secondary levels of education by 2005. the powerful the scholarships meant for the Attendance in primary level schooling fell poor. between 1999 and 2003. And in many parts of A solution to the gender disparity in the country, mainly due to economic ills, high education is the formation of a fund for higher numbers of children, both girls and boys, education (secondary and tertiary) with an remain truants. If anything, the education of emphasis on, but not restricted to, rural girls. girls is falling farther behind boys especially Though this fund could be for both secondary in rural areas. 107 As such, Tajikistan will also and tertiary education, hereby, we will look at in all likelihood not meet the 2015 MDG the tertiary case: At current prices, the cost of deadline of provision of equal opportunity in tuition, room and board for tertiary education education (of all levels) for boys and girls. 108 in the form of university attendance in Not meeting the MDG of gender equality in Tajikistan is between US$3,000-4,000 for four education for a given country will likely lead years —a bargain compared to Western (relative to states which have met their goal) institutions. Oxfam could initiate a scholarship to lower economic growth rate, more children program beginning in fall 2006 whereby 50 per child-bearing females, higher infant eligible rural youth (30 females and 20 males) mortality rate, and higher prevalence of would be granted scholarships to the underweight children under five. 109 institutions of higher learning in Tajikistan. Rural youngsters, in general, have far With an estimated cost of US$1,000 per fewer opportunities, among other things, for student per year, the first year of this program high school and university education as would require a budget of US$50,000. If the compared to urban youth. And though the number of students receiving university central government has set aside a quota for scholarships were to be doubled each year, by deserving rural youth to study in Tajikistan’s year five it would reach 800 with a total system of higher education, the process is annual budget of less than US$1m. By then, corrupted and the number of scholarships is the program could be fully run by a local grossly in-sufficient. One jamoat leader in the NGO and the funds raised from a variety of Kulob zone of Khatlon reported that out of independent sources. 110 300 eligible youth of the villages under its 12- Enlighten public of cotton-consuming jurisdiction, only one in a span of a few years states. The ultimate destination of Central Asian cotton is often the wardrobes of the 106 According to the ministry of education, in the 2004- well-to-do worldwide. As such, the public in 2005 academic year, female to male disparity in school the economically developed states, as cotton attendance for primary, middle, high school, and consumers, can have substantial impact on university levels were 4%, 8%, 20% and 50% respectively (IWPR, “Tajik girls disappearing from behaviour modification of the cotton sector in classrooms,” By Valentina Kasymbekova, IWPR’s countries as Tajikistan. Central Asia’s cotton Women’s Perspectives , No. 4, June 30, 2005). is traded on the international market with 107 Under the Soviet Union, Tajikistan had achieved significant progress in its educational attainments with European and, to a lesser extent, American younger generations consistently having had higher levels of education than the older, with women and girls 110 by the late 1980s having nearly caught up education-wise By year ten (2015) of this program, one can project with the men (World Bank, Gender in Transition , that as many as 3,200 mostly female students will have Pierella Pacci, Human Development Unit, May 21, graduated from four-year institutions of higher learning 2002). in Tajikistan, a total of 25,600 students would be 108 receiving scholarships and the total cost of the program World Bank, … Poverty Assessment Update … Jan. would be US$25.6m. To entice a spirit of service to 2005, op. cit. their home regions and villages, each eligible student 109 Dina Abu-Ghaida and Stephan Klasen, The Economic would be required to fulfill summer internships with the & Human Development Costs of Missing the Millennium local jamoat , CBO or NGOs working in their home rural Development Goal and Gender Equity , May 2004. areas.
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firms being among the top buyers. Swiss- potential violence. 113 Tajikistan’s limited based Paul Reinhart, Cargill Cotton UK, and arable land is susceptible to degradation via US-based Dunavant Cotton are a few of the mismanagement and overuse. Aside from the Western corporations purchasing Central social components of income and gender Asian cotton fibre. Cotton production is also inequality, which by themselves are national financed by Western banks and financiers with security risks, the cultivation of cotton in its products winding up in chic clothing outlets current format is a source of environmental worldwide. 111 degradation and thus a potential security risk The typical consumer in the as well. Cotton cultivation year after year on economically developed world, however, does the same fields, a process that has become not question how and where the cotton used in common in recent years due to the powerful a new shirt, sock or underwear originates cotton stakeholders’ desire for short-term from. She or he is not aware of the human profits, is gradually depleting the soils from conditions under which cotton is produced nutrients and organic matter. On a greater abroad. Some of the questions which an Aral Sea basin region, the use of large ‘enlightened’ consumer should ask are: Is the quantities of irrigation water have since the cotton production process detrimental to the early 1960s begun to wreck havoc on the wellbeing of women, children and others environment and people by turning a once working in the cotton fields? Is the good fourth largest body of water (situated between purchased a product of exploitative labour? Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) gradually into a Does the growing of cotton harm the natural salty desert flat. This tragedy is the fault of all environment, dry up lakes, and encourage Central Asian states utilizing the unmanaged global warming? 112 and excessive irrigation water and others, including the Western world for ignoring the What Oxfam can do to stimulate issue. thinking, promote discussion, debate and contemplation on the issue of cotton One result of devoting most of production in Central Asia (and the Tajikistan’s irrigated arable land to cotton is developing and transitional world in general) that households increasingly sow grain as a is to fund a 60-90 minute documentary on the rainfed crop in economically unsustainable said topic. Ideally the documentary could span and ecologically inappropriate places. coverage through several countries and According to an ADB report, as much as 98% continents, including Tajikistan. A potential of the agricultural lands (and 89% of all partner for such a documentary could be the pasture lands) in Tajikistan are suffering from British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). some degree of erosion, with the problem being especially acute in foothills. 114 13- Establish women’s environmental clubs Just prior to the breakup of the Soviet in cotton-growing regions. A 2003 study on Union, it was known that 63% of the environmental risks in Central Asia identified population of Tajikistan had access to piped Tajikistan as a country with a likely water. That figure is thought to have dropped relationship between environmental stress and to 46% by 1999. The percentage of the population with access to piped water has since thought to have risen to 53% by 2003. 111 IPS News , “Central Asia: Banks, businesses blamed for cotton abuses,” By Emad Mekay, March 2, 2005. 113 112 Most consumers do not know much about the typical UNEP, UNDP and OSCE, Addressing Environmental mode of cotton production worldwide. Though cotton is Risks in Central Asia: Risks, Policies, Capabilities , used in a variety of consumer goods — such as diapers Bratislava and Berlin, 2003. and ear swabs — among other things, cotton production 114 While plowing the hillsides, slopes of up to 25% are utilizes an estimated one quarter (25%) of all pesticides known to be widely used in Tajikistan under conditions used worldwide. The average Western consumer also of rainfed agriculture, while “ignoring observance of does not know that it takes up to three-quarters of a organizational and agrotechnical anti-erosion measures” pound of environmentally unsafe fertilizers and (ADB, Tajikistan: Issue and Approaches to Combat pesticides to produce a pair of blue jeans, for example Desertification , Discussion draft, Shiv Saikal, (Health , “Earth-friendly fiber,” May 2003). Consultant, 2003).
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The rate of access to potable (safe) water is Environmental Clubs. The clubs could also be likely less than assumed since no more than a component of the existing CBOs. 40% of the water purification plants in the country are fully functional. As a result, in 14- Generate income and solar energy for recent years, water-borne diseases such as and by rural women. Tajikistan has the typhoid have reappeared and killed many. An potential of becoming a major energy MDG environmental goal is to reduce the producer in Central Asia once the two number of people without access to safe hydroelectricity projects of Sangtuda and drinking water by half by 2015. One solution Roghun, with mainly Russian investment, are st is for communities, both rural and urban, in completed in the second decade of the 21 Tajikistan to begin mitigating their own health century. Currently, however, the majority of and environmental problems. rural areas throughout the country receive as Women’s environmental clubs, little as two hours of electricity per day. This especially in current cotton-growing regions of is due to the fact that few people in rural areas Tajikistan, can act as incubators of achieving can afford to pay their electricity bills. Even MDG health and environmental goals. Among after the completion of the above-mentioned other things, for example, simple water hydroelectricity plants, Tajik consumers will purification tanks can be constructed with likely be required to purchase electricity at or locally available inputs. Or in cotton growing near world market prices. One option for rural areas, where the incidence of malaria is high (and urban) households is to detach due to the presence of irrigation canals, the themselves from the national electricity grid removal of stagnant waters, and maintaining and produce their own electrical energy using cleanliness around the village wells have the solar, wind or micro-water turbines. The potential to substantially reduce exposure to shortage of energy also allows opportunities water-borne and infectious diseases. 115 for energy entrepreneurs. Much can also be learnt from the As an appropriate technology project work of the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace in rural Bangladesh has demonstrated, small Prize, Wangari Maathai of Kenya. Ms econo-mically viable solar energy systems can Maathai devised a plan of paying rural peasant be installed on rooftops, storing energy for women to plant seedlings in their own household usage at viable prices by villages, thus providing a future resource for ecologically friendly and sustainable methods. rural households, protecting the environment Some rural Bangladeshi women have been (from soil erosion and thus reducing mud trained through one to two month courses to slides and flood damage, all scourges in become solar energy technicians, thus being Tajikistan) and along the way empowering able to market, install and maintain solar 116 rural women. Since 1977, Kenyan women energy systems for individual homes in their inspired by Ms Maathai have planted over 30 village and surroundings. 118 Oxfam can million trees used for fruit, fuel and shade. 117 Similar environmental-women’s empowerment 118 projects can be implanted in rural Tajikistan The project, funded by the Grameen Bank, allows women in the Barisal village in Bangladesh to be trained through the formation of Women’s as solar radiation technicians. The women are able to install solar energy systems, which generate electricity at a one time installation cost to the household equivalent to 115 World Bank, Republic of Tajikistan Poverty US$25 (for a 30Watts system) to US$100 (120W) Assessment Update … 2005, op. cit . depending on the energy requirements of the customer. 116 The 30W solar energy system can generate electrical The Economist , “Kenya’s Nobel Laureate: The power for four hours/day to light at least two tube lights. women who planted trees,” Oct. 14, 2004. Customers can purchase the system through a 25% down 117 Once jailed by the Kenyan government for payment and 36 monthly installments. The system for a championing women’s rights and the environment, Ms given households requires a solar panel, battery pack to Maathai later became a Green Party MP in Kenya and is store the generated electricity, a charge controller and now serving as the Assistant Minister of Environment in some other inputs. ( Bangladesh Journal , "Solar energy the Kenyan government ( Ms. Magazine , “From gadfly getting popular day by day in Southern Bangladesh," to Nobel peace prize: Kenya’s Wangari Maathai,” By April 10, 2005.
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consult with directors of the Bangladesh general women’s rights. 121 Though the project, potentially bringing a technical securing of broadcasting permit from the consultant to formulate plans for a women’s ministry of justice is difficult, the idea of a income and solar energy generation model ‘development radio’ that would concentrate on project in rural Tajikistan. advocating the principles of the MDGs, already an objective of the GOT, is viable. 15- Co-sponsor international forum on The station could initially use international aid ‘Human Security and National Security in funds available for creating independent media Transitional States’ . The issue of women and in Tajikistan 122 and soon after be financially cotton in Tajikistan and similar post- self-reliant via generating income through communist transitional states is not only one commercial ads. This project can have a of women’s rights and human security, but multinational effect: If the broad-cast range is directly affects national securities and should large enough, and broadcasting is done in be of concern to a variety of stakeholders. In Tajik, Uzbek and Russian languages, it can be the case of Tajikistan, the entities concerned heard and understood not only in rural and about human security and national security urban areas in Tajikistan, but also in northern are: The GOT, international buyers of Tajik Afghanistan and southeastern Uzbekistan. cotton, international financial institutions, and various domestic and international NGOs 17- Co-sponsor ‘The 2006 Livelihood Survey involved in the sectors of women’s rights and of Women, Households, and Farms in agriculture. Oxfam can be the leading agency Tajikistan’ . To further gauge the problems of to co-sponsor a forum or conference on the rural economy and women, it is important ‘Human Security and National Security in to generate systematic baseline longitudinal Transitional Societies’. This event could be data composed of solid quantitative and held in Spring 2006 in Dushanbe or any of the qualitative information. The study can be capitals of the low income post-communist undertaken gauging living conditions, food states, also known as CIS-7, many of which security, farming and livelihood practices, and are also cotton exporters. 119 knowledge of land rights and women’s rights throughout the country. The suggested 2006 16- Establish a ‘development radio’ in Livelihood Survey of Women, Households, and Khatlon . According to the head of the NGO Farms in Tajikistan should query at least Ghamkhori (‘Sympathy’), there is nearly no 1,000-1,500 randomly selected households reliable mass communication technology throughout the country (from both cotton and available in the rural areas of Khatlon. A non-cotton growing regions), with a carefully radio station based in Shahritus, for example, designed questionnaire containing a series of could be a cost effective way of social, economic and agronomic indicators. communicating with thousands of households The study can also include qualitative case in Khatlon primarily by the local development studies and focus groups of rural women, and community. Ghamkhori, which is already involved with a small microcredit programme with women-headed households, is interested [trichomoniasis (25%), candidosis (18%), chlamydia trachomatis (15%), syphilis (6%), gonorrhea (0.2%), in providing information and training to and hepatitis B virus (0.2%)], with STDs being most women on a variety of issues such as hygiene, common among women in the 21-39 age category. The potable water, family planning, health 120 and survey also found an extremely low awareness of STDs, with 72% of all females questioned (and 63% of all housewives) knowing nothing about them (M. Jamalova, 119 The CIS-7 consists of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, “Tajikistan: STD survey results,” MEntre Nous Cph Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Den , Spring (42):12, 1999). 121 120 Among the health problems in the Khatlon province is Meeting with local NGO director, Shahritus, Khatlon, the alarming prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases March 27, 2005. (STDs). A 1999 survey conducted in Khatlon found an 122 The United States, for example, intends on providing extremely high rate of STDs among women in the US$887,000 towards training and equipment for five province and a very low knowledge by women of the independent radio stations in Tajikistan ( World News problem. The survey found that 76% of the women Connection , “Nezavisimaya Gazeta cites reactions to US tested (via blood tests) had some sort of STD State Department CIS Media Aid Plan,” Aug. 8, 2005).
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interviews with experts and stakeholders in work, education, access to resources and involved with agriculture, cotton and women’s representation in public and private life, and rights. To generate maximum interest in such equal voice in running one’s own life (in the a baseline survey, it should have multiple case of Tajikistan, the choice of the type of sponsors from both the international crop to farm), is “a prerequisite to community, local NGOs and GOT. overcoming hunger, poverty and disease.” 123 Still, when seeking solutions for the socioeconomic problems associated with the gendered cotton of Tajikistan (and by induction, other cotton-producing transitional states), a critical question appears: Is cotton the problem? We can take the stance that cotton per se is not the cause for the miserly and often non-existent pay of female farm workers; that it is not the culprit behind higher food insecurity in cotton-growing as opposed to non-cotton-growing regions of the country; it is not the cause of insufficient infrastructure, educational opportunities and health facilities in rural areas; and cotton has not driven out hundreds of thousands of rural Tajik men to mainly Russia seeking work under dangerous settings. Rather the blame for the above is the still imperfect market economic relations; the inequitable A female war icon in Khatlon distribution of economic gains from cotton farming, and lack of proper implementation of overarching rules of land reform and farm privatization; the real culprit being corruption, VIII. onclusions C greed and weak central government —all of which will be fixed with proper policy his has been an exploratory study T implementation in due time. Thus Tajikistan’s on the relationship of cotton and gender in inequitable economic development and Tajikistan with suggestions for improving the associated gender disparity in receiving lot of rural women cotton workers and their benefits form cotton production and export, households. As such, it has proposed a series one can argue, are part of the overall of ideas as means and solutions to tackle the ‘growing pains’ associated with the ongoing problem of gender inequity and empowerment transition towards a market-oriented economy. of rural women living in the cotton growing The invisible hand of the market coupled with regions. Some of the recommendations rightly eventual transparent political and economic appear not to directly relate to the interplay of infrastructures will take care of any cotton and gender. It is argued hereby, production inefficiencies and the associated however, that the pool of solutions to choose socio-economic shortcomings of the cotton- from toward enhancing the wellbeing of growing communities. Given such female cotton farmers must be broad. Some reassurances and assumptions, the answer to recommendations are non-agricultural and whether cotton is the problem would surely be even gender-neutral (such as the promotion of No . non-cotton economic activity, or long-term educational funding for girls and boys). It is agreed here that, as emphasized by the UN millennium development goals, and as 123 United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals undoubtedly also applying to Tajikistan, Report , New York, 2005. gender equality in all its dimensions, such as
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But if one argues that with the current economic and environmental constraints in Tajikistan, where powerful business entities dominate the cotton scene; where most farms have no choice but to deal with monopsonic ginneries and ‘futurist’ loan shark investors; where the choice of planting of non-cotton food crops is not that of the majority of the female farm workers; where the newly-formed dehqon farms are expected to bear the burden of a cotton debt approaching US$300m, while cotton yields have remained flat and benefits of cotton sales miniscule for cotton farms and farmers; where officials continue to take advantage of rural women’s rights by refusing to pay wages fairly and timely, and by rebuffing demands to issue land certificates and farm shares; where full-time work on the cotton farm by household members is not sufficient to feed and clothe one’s family; and where incomes of non-cotton-growing regions and households surpass those of the cotton- growers, given such real caveats, the answer to whether cotton is the problem is surely Yes. Oxfam and other development agencies in Tajikistan must utilize instrumentalist advocacy tactics while seeking systemic changes in the cotton sector, in such a way wherein the various goals of female cotton workers’ well-being and empowerment are not mistakenly seen as mere ends to themselves nor as part of a zero-sum game with “politically weak winners” (female cotton farmers) and “powerful losers” 124 (business and government elite). It is the development community’s task to convey to all parties that the long term advantage of the part, that of each cotton stakeholder, is best to be achieved through the advantage of the whole —including the 300,000-plus female cotton workers of Tajikistan.
124 Nalia Kabeer, “Resources, agencies, achievements: Reflections on the agency of women’s empowerment,” Development and Change 30: 435-64, 1999.
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Appendix One: shares from the collective farm, if any, is assigned to her and her family when the farm was converted
Case Studies & Focus Groups from a kolkhoz into a collective dehqon farm. Ten years ago, she claims, the household did not have any land. She says that she is still a kolkhozchi Female Farmer Case Study No. 2 (collective farm worker) on the 160ha farm with many others in her village. Qaimatgul is clearly Qaimatgul, whose name translates into ‘Precious unhappy with the working conditions on the farm. She says that cotton is not a profitable crop for her Flower’, has been working in the cotton fields of family. One of the few benefits of cotton is the southern Tajikistan for the past 27 year—though ghuzapoya or the dried cotton stalks, which she is only 38 years old. She lives in the village of Qaimatgul’s household and other cotton workers Navobod in the Kulob district of Khatlon province. are allowed to collect from the field at the end of She is married and has five children. Aside from the harvest. She uses the cotton stalks as fuel for herself, four of her children (an 18 year old cooking the family’s meals and for warming the daughter and three sons aged 18, 12 and 10) also mud-house during winter. The importance of the work in the cotton fields of their village in what cotton stalk for Qaimatgul can be seen by her Qaimatgul still refers to as kolkhoz (Soviet comment that she mainly works on the cotton collective farm, which has now been categorized as fields to be able to collect the stalks. Some families a ‘collective dehqon farm’). The family works are also known to sell or barter a portion of their anywhere from early April of each year when the collected cotton stalks to purchase food. cotton fields are readied for cultivation until December when the cotton-picking season is completed. According to Qaimatgul, her family’s main income is from working on the collective farm and from the salary earned by her husband as school teacher in the village. Qaimatgul claims that last year the collective farm did not pay her and her family the full wages it had promised and that her family members, all together, received a monthly wage of only S15 (US$5) from the beginning of the cotton season until commencing of cotton picking. She claims they made a total of S252 (US$82) from this process in 2004 (for average earnings of about S27 or a mere US$9/month during a nine month period). Qaimatgul claims to have a work contract with the Wheat plot in Shahritus district, Khatlon farm. By her account, the family is owed S627 or When asked if she knows how much money the US$205 by the farm. For many households in the farm she is a member of is indebted, Qaimatgul village the main source of income is the money says: “We owe a life-time of debt for cotton, for sent by male relatives working abroad, mainly in water and for electricity!” She doesn’t know how Russia. It is not clear if Qaimatgul’s family is much, however. When asked what crops she would benefiting from such workers’ remittances. prefer to cultivate in the farm if the decision was The household has a one-hectare share in the hers, Qaimatgul says that she would grow wheat collective farm. She and her husband also have 7 instead of cotton. In her opinion, the main sotiqs (0.07ha) of irrigated ‘presidential’ land, problems her family faces is poverty, lack of which they have had for nearly a decade. There’s employment, lack of money and low wages from no guarantee that the family will be allowed to use working for the collective farm and cultivating the said lands indefinitely, however. The family cotton. The main problem of her village, claims also has 9 sotiqs (0.09ha) of land attached to their Qaimatgul, is that the authorities do not allow the house. “We grow wheat, onions and vegetables in villagers to grow wheat on the collective farm. the presidential plot and the land attached to the And the main problem of the collective farm, she house,” says Qaimatgul. Some households in the says, is the accumulating debt. Being poor does not village and the neighbouring village of Laqmon are allow her family to have sufficient food. They are able to take their excess agricultural produce for thus undernourished, she says. Furthermore, being sale to any of the markets in Kulob, the district and in the cotton field affects the health of the women regional capital, which is only a few kilometres in the village. Qaimatgul has seen women being away. Qaimatgul does not know how much land afflicted with rheumatism, various gynecological
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problems, allergy, and even poisoning due to the and is currently attempting to rent yet an additional handling of chemicals used in cotton cultivation. hectare of land from the same collective farm. She says that working in the cotton fields, Instead of rent for the land, Firuza pays taxes of especially during the picking season, does not S132 (US$43) each year to the local government. allow her children to properly pursue their The family also owns 6 sotiqs (0.06ha) of land education. She thinks that a sewing factory for attached to their home on which they plant women, increased knowledge of women of their potatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables. They rights and increased farm wages will all assist in used to have a small plot of ‘presidential’ land as improving living conditions in her village. She also well, which was registered in the name of Firuza would like to own her own dehqon farm, thus and her son. The land was given to them in 1997, being able earn a living income. but she had to pay a fee (likely an extortion) of S160 (then about US$80) to acquire the certificate associated with it. The presidential plot of land was eventually taken away from the household, however, after she acquired a private dehqon farm. According to Firuza, though only two people from the household work on the land rented from the collective farm, on their private dehqon farm the family utilizes the labour of seven of its members. For the work conducted on the collective farm where cotton is planted, the family receives wages of S20 (US$6.5) per month for each of the two members working. The two household members work on all aspects of cotton production, such as land preparation, tilling, seeding and cotton picking, but not irrigation, a task for which the farm normally employs the services of two or more male collective farm workers. During the cotton picking season beginning in August of each year, however, seven members of the household participate in order to maximize the amount of cotton picked and earnings. Last year, says Firuza, the household picked a total of 2.7 tonnes of raw cotton for which it earned S240 (less than US$80) in addition to the end-of-season cotton stalks Young cotton worker, Khatlon province collected from the field. In 2004, the family was able to collect a total of 500 ‘darza’ or bundles of
cotton stalks. Female Farmer Case Study No. 3 On the 1ha of dehqon farm, the family grows wheat from November to June of each year, and Firuza (‘Turquoise’) is 45 years old, and together cultivates rice from July to September. In 2004, the household was able to produce 3.5 tonnes of with seven members of her households lives in a wheat and 3 tonnes (60 ‘qobchas’ or bags) of rice, village in the Kulob jamoat and district of Khatlon. an impressive achievement. The total land tax for Firuza claims to have worked on the cotton fields the same was S43 (US$14) for the year. Firuza since she was 13 years old —for more than 30 says that aside from the farm yields, another years. She lost her husband during the civil war in source of income for her household is S80 (US$26) 1992, and though she has since remarried, she is of monthly wage she receives as a school teacher. the second wife to her new husband in a She also receives S72 (US$24)/month from the polygamous relationship. The husband left for state for ‘support for orphaned children of the Russia three months ago to seek employment and war’. Furthermore, Firuza’s children make some she has not heard from him since. Firuza has six money through the sale of cigarettes and candy children and since 1998 has had a one-hectare through an informal micro-business stall right private dehqon farm. The private farm, which is in outside the family’s house. Still, Firuza says that in her name, is for lifetime use and can be transferred 2004, the family had to borrow US$500 to cover to her children when she wishes or after her the expenses associated with her son’s wedding. passing. She also has one hectare of rented land She managed to pay back that loan. But since from the collective farm she had been a member of
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January 2005, she has had to borrow an additional US$200 at extremely high interest rate from a local lender to pay for inputs needed mostly for preparing the family’s rented plot of land. She has not been able to pay the principle back and has been forced to pay a monthly interest payment of S80 (US$26) for the debt (equivalent to an exorbitant 156% annual interest). Firuza thinks that cotton, as compared to food crops, would be profitable only if one could sell the cotton at a reasonable price and if the local investors were to come through with the promised agronomic inputs. She says that if it was up to her, she would plant cucumbers on the collective land Vegetable market in Khatlon instead of cotton, since non-cotton crops would currently earn much more profits for the farm members than cotton. When asked if the collective Female Farmer Case Study No. 4 farm is indebted or not, Firuza says: “All I know is that we owe money to a Tajik general.” She says, however: “[The debt issue] is not important Zuhra (‘Venus’) is 34, married and has four to me.” This is likely due to the fact that the debt children. She lives in the village of Navobod in the is not owed by her household but by the collective Kulob district of Khatlon province. Her household farm. consists of a total of 13 members from two Firuza says that the authorities have not forced her families. She has been working on the farm to grow cotton since her farm is merely 1ha. If the adjacent to her village since she married her farm was as large as 2-3ha, she says, then she husband at age 20. Of the 13 members of her would be required to plant 70% of the area in household, 12 work in the kolkhoz , including even cotton. Firuza claims that the main profit earned Zuhra’s six year old son. She and the rest of the by farm workers in the cotton field is that of the women in her household work on all aspects of collection of the cotton stalks. In her opinion, the cotton production beginning in March of each year main problem of her village is the lack of sufficient until January of next. The men of the family only land and people’s lack of knowledge about their assist during irrigation time. The household own rights. She says that a major problem receives as little as S12 (US$4)/month for work on preventing her household from earning more one hectare of land. During the cotton picking money is not having enough land. “If I had at least season, the household receives 5 dirams 3-4ha I would be able to earn more, and would (US$0.02)/kg of cotton picked. Zuhra is able to have even been able to help my neighbours who collect up to 100kg of cotton per day during peak are in need”. Another problem associated with her harvest time. To earn additional income, she also family is that one of her daughters is mentally works as a custodian in the school which pays her challenged, having had caught a fever as an infant, S16 (US$5)/month. Her husband too has additional which she thinks affected her mental abilities. The tasks at the kolkhoz which earns the family some main problem of the collective farm, says Firuza, income. is the debt. Another problem of the village is the Cotton production is not profitable for the lack of availability of potable water. Many women household, but does earn the family some income drink from the irrigation canals when working in in addition to the dried cotton stalks which the the fields, she says, resulting in a variety of family uses as firewood throughout the year. The ailments. Furthermore irrigating and spraying of personal agricultural plots of the family is a total of pesticides on the fields also affect women’s health. 19.5 sotiqs (0.2 hectares), 4.0 sotiqs (0.04ha) of Firuza says that the village could use a small which is presidential; 8.5 sotiqs (0.085ha) being in factory to generate income. the name of Zuhra’s deceased father-in-law, a veteran of WWII who passed away last week; and another 7 sotiqs (0.07ha) being land attached to the family’s home. In a few days, Zuhra’s family will be serving food to neighbours and friends at a ceremony (known as Khodaie or ‘God’s deed’) to commemorate the passing of her father-in-law. She says that she will have to borrow food from the
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community for this, and thus the required payment from the sale of cotton to the government, ceremony will take the family further into debt. If which Zuhra says was as much as 600 roubles it was her choice, Zuhra would cultivate wheat: “It (US$1,200/person). Independence and privati- would allow my kids to eat!” Zuhra has no specific zation did away with all that, however. knowledge about the extent of the collective farm’s cotton debt and says she works on the cotton farm since the head of the farm orders them to do so. In Zuhra’s opinion, the household should be paid at least S40-50 (US$13-14)/month for working in the cotton field. Since the wages from the collective farm obviously do not suffice for the needs of Zuhra’s family, household members do other things to make ends meet: Aside form working on the cotton farm, for example, household members work with silk warms, where in 2004 they collectively earned S45 (US$15) for having produced 45kg of raw silk. Zuhra thinks, however, that working with silk warms is a difficult and risky business, since the warms often do not survive. In her opinion, the main problem in her household is the insufficiently of food such as wheat flour and cooking oil, and other items such as soap. Zuhra says that the household also has some health issues. She, herself, often does not feel well and has lost weight in recent years. She has no money to see a doctor. Furthermore, Zuhra’s husband’s back aches due to his work with irrigating the cotton crop. To earn extra income, her husband has recently worked in the capital city Preparing land for cotton in Yovon, Khatlon Dushanbe for two months during which he made a profit of S60 (US$20). He used the money to purchase medicine for his back ache, however, and Female Farmer Case Study No. 5 these days he spends most of his time resting at home. Sadaf (‘Sea Shell’) is an ethnic Tajik woman in a Working in the cotton fields is detrimental to the village in the Shahritus district of southern Khatlon children’s wellbeing, since many miss classes and province of Tajikistan. She is married and lives in it spends their energy which should be used for a house with her husband and five children. Sadaf studying. Zuhra thinks that if there were and her daughter are members of a collective alternative employment available near her village, dehqon farm in her village. Last year, the two that the lives of her household and others could be earned a total of S50 (US$17) for three months of improved. She thinks that there is need for work in preparing and caring for the cotton rows humanitarian assistance. “One bag of rice can feed they were assigned to by the collective farm [S20 my kids for a whole month!”, she says. The for plowing the field (in March) and S30 for poverty associated with working in the cotton weeding (May and June); they were given no fields has not allowed Zuhra to purchase new money for having done the necessary clipping of outfits for herself and her children. “We have not the cotton crop, however, which took around 20- received our wages since August,” she says. Zuhra 25 days.] Later during the harvest season, which also has not received her due earnings for picking lasted five months, Sadaf says that she and her cotton in 2004. When she approached the farm daughter made a total of S95 (US$32). After the leader to demand her pay, he did not want to talk cotton was harvested, the two took out dried cotton to her, having said something to the effect that he stalks ( ghuzapoya ) from the field for another 15 could not pay Zuhra until the farm itself gets out of days, collecting between 100-120 bundles. The debt. Zuhra says that during the Soviet era, each total earnings for Sadaf and her daughter from month her household could earn as much as 60-70 working in the cotton farm during the year, Rubles (roughly US$120-140). There existed a therefore, was no more than S145 (less than variety of other benefits including pregnancy leave, US$50) for an average cash earnings of about S12 vacations, in-kind pay, and a hefty end-of-year (US$4) per month plus the dried cotton stalks.
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Sadaf says that she and her daughter do not have Female Farmer Case Study No. 6 work contracts with the collective farm. She doesn’t know what land shares and certificates she ilufar is 48 years old and has a 10 th grade and her household may own in the collective N dehqon farm either. education. She is an ethnic Uzbek, and lives in the village of Qahramon (‘Champion’) in the Shahritus Sadaf’s household was given 3 sotiqs (0.03ha) of district of Khatlon province. Nilufar was born in presidential land eight years ago. The household the neighbouring Qabudian district. She and her also has a kitchen garden attached to their house household moved to their present home in with an area of 20 sotiqs (0.2ha). More Shahritus district in 1998. Her village is only importantly, the collective farm allows Sadaf’s several kilometres from the district capital (also household to use 0.1ha of farmland owned by the ‘Shahritus’). There are 180 households living in collective farm in which the household plants Qahramon. What used to be the former Soviet wheat and corn. Sadaf claims that the right to use farm ( kolkhoz ) in the village with 100ha of land the said land (which is likely an irrigated plot) is has since the late 1990s been reorganized and the main reason she and her daughter are willing to given away, as a result of which only 33ha of the work for the farm in the cotton field, despite the original kolkhoz has remained. Another 6ha of the low wages. She hopes that the farm will eventually old kolkhoz have also been distributed to allocate more land to her household. Sadaf’s households as presidential lands in plots of 0.05- family sow wheat, vegetables and rice on their 0.2ha in size. There are now five private dehqon land, the decision of which is totally their own. farms as well, including the one Nilufar works for, Sadaf does not know how much, if any, the which is composed of 10ha and 20 members, with collective farm is indebted to investors. When each member having anywhere from 0.53-0.6ha of asked what crops she would plant in the collective land shares. The distribution of land from the old farm if the decision was hers, Sadaf says any crop kolkhoz has not been equitable. One household in high demand in the market. She says that there alone, says Nilufar, has received 17ha of rented are no major problems in her household and she land, in which they plant wheat and various does not know what the major problem with her vegetables. village or the farm would be. Sadaf is hopeful There are nine people living in Nilufar’s house- about the future. She says that if one has a job hold: She, her husband, one son and six daughters. which pays and one works hard, nearly all Nilufar, her husband and son also work for the problems can be alleviated. She would prefer Sarvinoz private dehqon farm as labourers. Nilufar working in a factory which would pay good wages says that she has been working in the cotton fields instead of working in the cotton fields. No one since she was 14 and for the past three years in the from Sadaf’s immediate household is working village of Qahramon. She has no work contract abroad and the household is not in debt. with the farm she works for. The farm was ordered by the district authorities to plant as much as 90% of its area in cotton in 2004. Nilufar’s tasks on the farm during the year begin each January when she and other (majority female) workers start cleaning the irrigation drainage canals, plowing and levelling the land and clearing it of weeds. These preparatory tasks prior to the planting of the cotton seeds take about three months (January-March). Nilufar, her husband and son participate in farm work in the cotton fields, for which they earn only S10 (US$3.2) per month or, if no money is available, they sometimes receive in-kind payments of 5-6 litres of cotton oil. The planting of cotton seeds begins in April and takes three full days. The men are normally in charge of irrigating the cotton fields. As such, Nilufar’s husband and son help in the irrigation process, which begins in April and ends in October, during which the fields are irrigated
about 24 times. They earn together anywhere Sunny day in Qahramon, Shahritus district between S10-20 (US$3.2-6.4) per month for their work. The weeding of the cotton plant begins in
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May and ends in August, a process which is and farming. When asked why she works in the repeated about five times. Nilufar and her son cotton field, Nilufar says that she has a large participate in this task and earn S10-20 per month family and has to work for the earnings. Plus, or the equivalent in-kind. The task of clipping of working with cotton allows her to collect dried the cotton plant takes 15 days in August for which cotton stalks which the family uses as fuel. “There Nilufar and he son earn about S10. Finally the is no other source of fuel or firewood in our harvesting of cotton begins by end of August and village,” says Nilufar, “other than ghuzapoya lasts until December. Nilufar and four other [cotton stalks]”. members of her family participate in the If she was permitted to grow any other crop harvesting. She says that during the early phase of besides cotton on the collective dehqon farm, the cotton picking season, she and her household Nilufar would grow wheat: are able to pick anywhere from 150-180kg of raw cotton per day. In 2004, Nilufar’s household collected wages from cotton picking on six “If I were to have enough wheat, I would occasions for a total of S605 (about US$200). not worry so much. I would know that my Aside from working on the cotton farm as children will not go hungry. labourers, Nilufar and her household are allowed ” to plough 20 sotiqs (0.2ha) of land in which they Nilufar says that if there were more profitable line grow wheat. In 2004, the family was able to of work other than what she’s doing now, she harvest about 800kg of wheat, a yield equivalent to would take it. She says that the main problems 4.0 tonnes/ha. Nilufar says that the family also which her household faces are: insufficient land, uses the kitchen garden attached to their house, not enough food, and lack of money needed for an about 0.1ha, in which they grow potatoes, upcoming wedding of one of her daughters. tomatoes, corn, onions and other vegetables, all of Nilufar has no idea what the main problem of the which is consumed by the household. To earn farm she works for is. Though her husband and additional income, Nilufar bakes bread which she children are healthy, by working in the cotton sells in the local market. She sells anywhere from fields, Nilufar has developed health problems: She 60-80 traditional round Central Asian bread ( non ) suffers from rheumatism and anaemia, both per day for S0.5 (US$0.15) each. Baking and common ailments among rural women in Khatlon. selling bread allows Nilufar to earn a profit of about S3-4/day (US$1.15). Aside from selling bread, she also sells eggs, about 10-15/day for Female Farmer Case Study No. 7 S0.2 (US$0.06)/egg. Nilufar uses the profit from such sales to purchase tea, sugar and other items needed by the family such as soap. Despite clearly Qaimat (‘Precious’) is a 45 year old woman not making sufficient money by working as a living in a village in the Kulob district of the cotton labourer, Nilufar still considers working in eastern part of southern Khatlon province. She is the cotton fields as profitable and necessary for her an ethnic Tajik and was born in the village she household. She has hopes, however, that someday lives in. Her household consists of eight people: her son will be able to aid the family substantially She, her husband and their six children. For the through non-cotton activity. He is currently in the past 24 years, Qaimat has been a member of the 9th grade. Nilufar says that if her son was 18-20 Zaripov collective farm, located nearby. Five years of age, the family would send him to Russia members of her household work on the same farm, to seek work. That would make life easier for her which mainly grows cotton. Along with others household due to the likely remittances that he working on the farm, the household is involved in would send back to them in Tajikistan. carrying out nearly all aspects of the cotton growing, from plowing the land, planting the Nilufar says that the collective land for which she cotton seeds, taking care of the ensuing crop and used to work for in Qabudian did not give her any later harvesting the cotton and clearing the field land after privatization. She also does not know from the dried cotton stalks. where and how one could apply for one’s own private dehqon farm. Unlike many other village Qaimat claims that her family earned a mere total households, Nilufar’s family does not own a of S143 (US$47) in wages and earnings from the presidential plot of land. When asked if she knows farm last year. She says, however, that working how much the farm she works for is indebted to for the farm is not her family’s main income. creditors, Nilufar says that she does not get Rather, the household’s primary income is from involved in such affairs, that she is a mere engaging in dairy farming utilizing the family’s housewife. All she knows, she says, is housework sole milk cow. Qaimat is in charge of selling the
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cow’s milk regularly and using the profits to farm salary was not sufficient for our family.” purchase needed food and other items for daily During the four years since he has left, however, use. At the same time, Qaimat says that the main he has yet to send any money or any word of his incentive of working on the cotton fields is to be whereabouts. She says that the family is currently able to collect the dried cotton stalks at the end of in debt for S150 (US$50) due to the money the season. The family sells most of the stalks to borrowed for purchasing food. earn additional cash to buy wheat. [From 1ha of land, the household likely gathers around 500-600 bundles of cotton shrubs, which they can sell in the Female Farmer Case Study No. 8 market for around S300 (US$100)]. Qaimat says that her household also has the use of 1ha of land lambi is 46 and lives in a village in the Vose which belongs to the collective farm on which the O district, located in the Kulob zone of Khatlon family grows wheat and vegetables. She does not province. She has seven children. Most members have a certificate indicating that the family has the of her household are members of the local right to use the land. The family also has 0.04ha of collective dehqon farm in her village. Olambi tells presidential land as well which they’ve had for the about the difficult task of working in the cotton past five years. Qaimat says that though so far no fields: By January and February of each year, one has threatened to take their land plots away from them, she still does not feel secure regarding members of the collective have to plough the land. the family’s landholdings. The men in this village do much of this task (though in most villages, it appears that the rough She says that if she had control over what to grow task of plowing is mostly left as the responsibility on the collective farm, she would prefer to sow the of women). In Olambi’s village, the women land 50% in cotton and 50% in vegetables. When usually start work on the cotton fields in April by asked if the collective farm she works on is clearing the land of weeds and stones. Later male indebted or not, Qaimat says that she has heard members plant the cotton seeds, which by May that the farm has a debt of “one million”, though begin to germinate. The women conduct hoeing she does not know if the debt is in dollars or four times and later the cotton bush needs to be cut somoni, the Tajik currency. Qaimat welcomes so that it branches out rather than grow tall. By alternative lines of work, such as working in a mid-August, the harvesting of raw cotton begins sewing factory. She claims that the main problems and lasts until mid- to end of December. And associated with her family are unemployment, immediately after, the women begin collecting the insufficient income and food. With regards to her dried cotton stalks. Women are thus involved in village, she says that the main problems are lack of working with cotton about 9 months during the meaningful employment and lack of natural gas (as year. They get paid every four months based on gas has never been provided to most villages in the area of land and tasks they have been Tajikistan and is provided mainly to key urban responsible for. Olambi says that she received a areas). Furthermore, says Qaimat, the collective total of S8 (less than US$3) from the cotton farm farm does not pay salaries on a timely fashion. She every four months in 2004. says that working in the cotton fields is extremely difficult. During winter she suffers from Working under the sun during the heat of the rheumatism and in summer high blood pressure. summer, in addition to improper nutrition and lack She also says that she has developed kidney stones, of potable water, causes a variety of health but has no money to see a doctor for treatment. problems for the women including anaemia, Working in the cotton fields also affects the study diarrhoea, hepatitis, and other diseases. The hot habits of her children. The family has no extra weather also leads to skin rashes and other budget to buy clothing and other necessities needed maladies. Working in the winter months is also for her children for attending school. “That is why problematic given the fact that most workers we force them to work in the cotton fields,” she cannot afford proper warm clothing and footwear. says. With the money earned working on the For example, most women can only afford cheap cotton farm, she says, the children can purchase rubber shoes which cannot protect the feet from some needed school supplies. the elements. As a consequence many suffer from rheumatism, reticulates, pneumonia and other Qaimat wishes her family would be the owner of illnesses. Furthermore, hard work and the cold has the land on which they work and would be able to lead to some pregnant female workers to suffer grow any profitable crop they wished. In the end miscarriages. No one can afford proper protection of the interview, she says that her husband has left gear and thus exposure to pesticides and artificial for Russia four years ago trying to earn money for fertilizers have also caused health problems. the household. “He went there since the collective Others encounter nutritional and health problems
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from lack of consumption of sufficient meals and with the local kolkhoz . In the past eight years, warm meals especially during winter. Most however, she has been a brigade leader with the households cannot afford enough protein which can same farm. It’s only been a month which the be obtained from the consumption of meat, a kolkhoz has been restructured into a collective commodity that households experience consuming dehqon farm. According to Hanifa, the members nowadays only during special occasions such as demanded a farm head which they could trust. weddings and khodaie s (‘remembrance of the “We sent a petition to the government to select our dead’). For some families a typical warm meal is own leader,” she says. The authorities then that of tea, sugar and bread. And the people’s assigned a Mr Anvar Vahidov, whom Hanifa and insufficient income and the gradual and de facto other workers approve of, as the farm head. privatization of medical services have lead to the Hanifa says that “cotton production is profitable”. inability of most to afford a doctor’s visit and to She says that the 23 women and girls and four men purchase needed medicines when sick. in her work brigade all get paid for their work on the 40ha of collective farm land they are assigned to, and they are grateful for it. Beginning in February of each year, Hanifa’s brigade begin plowing the land, levelling it, later planting the cotton seeds, and preparing it for the cotton crop development and harvest. This year, they’ve also planted some berry trees in the farm. Four men in the village, including a male member of Hanifa’s household, are in charge of irrigating the fields (between April and August) for which they earn about S35 (US$11.5)/month. The harvesting of raw cotton begins by late August and lasts for four months. Last year, says Hanifa, her family earned about S300 (US$100) during the harvest season. In addition to working in the cotton fields, another source of income for Hanifa’s household is the selling of potatoes and fruits such as apricots, which earn the household an extra S300/year. From work on the cotton farm, Hanifa and her household earn about S360/y (for her work as brigade leader) and another S300/y by her daughter as farm worker. For additional income, the family also sews shopping bags for sale in the Settler in Beshkent district, Khatlon local bazaar.
Hanifa knows that she and others working on the collective farm have shares in the farm, but they Female Farmer Case Study No. 9 do not have any papers showing what they own. Hanifa lives in a home, which she has been renting Hanifa lives in the village of Madaniyyat from the local authorities for the past two years. (‘Civilization’) in the Sarvat-e Istiqlol (‘Wealth of She has a vegetable garden (about 0.04ha) and a Independence’) jamoat in the Bokhtar district of relatively large greenhouse as part of the house. Qurghonteppa zone of Khatlon province. She is 48 She plants lemons and various vegetables in the years old, an ethnic Tajik, and has an 11 th grade greenhouse. Hanifa’s family also has eight sotiqs education. Hanifa lives in the same village where (0.08ha) of presidential land that they’ve used she was born. She has seven children. Three since the mid-1990s. They cultivate wheat and families live together in her household and three corn on this land. The land’s productivity is low people from the household work on the collective however: In 2004, Hanifa claims they were able to dehqon farm, growing mostly cotton. collect a mere 50kg of wheat from their presidential land due to the family’s inability to In the early 1990s, Hanifa used to work in a textile afford pesticides needed to combat an overgrown factory in the district capital, but after a few years weed problem. They also harvested some corn and she stopped working there due to the low pay and alfalfa. They consumed the corn and sold the began selling vegetables and bread in the local alfalfa for S40 (US$13). market instead. In 1995, she became a book keeper
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Last year, Hanifa and the all-women cotton problems. Furthermore, the women working in the brigade which she is in charge of in the collective cotton fields in the village encounter skin rashes, farm planted 1ha of land in lettuce and onions. high blood pressure, and rheumatism. Hanifa They later sold most of the produce and distributed knows that the collective farm is in debt, but does the profits and some produce to the brigade not know for how much, and considers it as the members. “I made S100 (US$33) from this and main problem facing the farm. bought 4 kurpochas (Central Asian traditional Hanifa thinks that women should be informed futons) for S11, 2 bags of 50kg flour and was able about their rights, especially about ownership to make preserved vegetables for the household as rights to the land they work on. She also wishes well,” she says. Also in 2004, Hanifa’s brigade for a sewing factory to be located in her village planted 33ha of cotton with a production plan of 70 and for the collective farm to raise workers’ tonnes or 2.12 MT/ha, which they exceeded: “We wages. She does not think that she would be able produced 85 tonnes instead!,” she says. “During to secure her own private dehqon farm since she the 8 years of being a brigade leader, in only one says she does not know the land laws and was I not able to reach the production plan.” associated regulations. Hanifa hopes to see Despite the fact that she believes cotton is a organized meetings and training by the farm for profitable crop, still, if the decision on the type of women to know their work and ownership rights. crop to grow were to be hers alone to make, She also hopes to see training for young women to Hanifa says that she would grow vegetables avoid drug use and prevent AIDS. especially lettuce instead of cotton on the collective farm, since it is much easier to grow than cotton and can be sold in the local bazaar which is very Female Farmer Case Study No. 10 close to their village. She also thinks that lettuce can be chopped and with some ingredients sold ulduz (not her real name) lives in the with added value as salad. Hanifa says that the end Y of the year ghuzapoya (dried cotton stalks) is Madaniyyat village of Bokhtar district in the another incentive for her and her colleagues to Qurghonteppa zone of Khatlon province. She is 58 work in the cotton fields. The ghuzapoya is year old. She claims to be an ethnic Tajik, but at extracted from the land by three women and one closer inspection, she admits to being an ethnic man for a week. One darza (bundle) of it can be Uzbek. Yulduz has ten children and there are 15 sold for 70 dirams (US$0.23) in the market. people currently living in her household. She has been working since she was 20 years old in the Hanifa says that the main problems facing her cotton fields. Six people from her household — household is the shortage of food and not owning Yulduz, her husband and four children— work on their own house. The family has had some the local farm, a former Soviet kolkhoz recently personal legal issues to deal with in the past couple transformed to a collective dehqon farm. Yulduz of years which forced them to sell their own house works in a brigade which oversees cotton for US$7,000 and use the proceeds for their legal production on a hectare of land. expenses. That is why they rent the home they live in today. The collective has promised to give Since I’ve known myself, I’ve been Hanifa and her household what used to be a “ boshgoh-i sahroie (‘field house’) where the cotton working in the cotton fields.” workers used to rest between shifts especially during harvest time. The household also has rented 3ha of land from the collective farm—a substantially large plot—, in the The main problem facing her village, says Hanifa, name of her husband, on which they grow potatoes is inadequate potable water and the lack of access and corn. Yulduz’ husband works as a water or to natural gas. Her family also faces health issues: irrigation man for the collective farm. Yulduz Hanifa’s 55 year old husband has been afflicted for collects a salary of about S20-26 (US$6.5- the past 15 years with asthma and lives at home. 8.5)/month from the collective farm based on a Also sick is Hanifa’s father-in-law who lives with working contract. In response to the question: “Is them. “I need to buy S7 (US$2.3) worth of anti- cotton profitable?”, she answers: “Yes. I get paid asthma medicine for my husband nearly every and am able to collect the dried cotton stalks as other day. If an asthma attack occurs during the well.” Yulduz also makes additional income by night and we have no medicine, it will cost us S10 serving as a people’s doctor in the village. to purchase the drugs after hours”. She says that she already owes S110 of back dues to the local In addition to their rented land, the household has pharmacy. Her family also owes another US$1,000 20 sotiqs (0.2ha) of presidential land, which they for the remaining fees associated with their legal acquired in 1997. Furthermore, they have a 10
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sotiqs (0.1ha) kitchen garden attached to their Female Farmer Case Study No. 11 home. Ten years ago, Yulduz and her household only had the kitchen garden. When asked if she ehri is a 42 year old women living in a village knows how much the collective farm is indebted, M Yulduz responds: “I don’t know and it’s not really in the Bokhtar district in the Qurghonteppa zone of my business.” As to the decision what to grow on Khatlon province. She is an ethnic Tajik and is the collective farm, she says that she and others in originally from the neighbouring Jilikul district. the brigade get orders from the brigade leader who She has four children and has been widowed since has throughout the years ordered them to grow 1997. Her household is made up of ten people. She cotton. If the decision was Yulduz’, she would has been a member of the local collective farm, grow wheat and corn instead of cotton. which mainly cultivates cotton, for the past 18 years. She is the only person from her family Interviewer: “What else would you like to do working on the collective farm. Mehri says that ” she has no formal work contract with the farm. aside from growing cotton ? Her work on the cotton fields begin in February of each year when for two months she along with her Yulduz: “What else is there for women to do colleagues plough the land and prepare it for cotton [in the village] ?! ” cultivation. During those two months in 2004, she received a total S28 (US$9) as wages. Later work Regarding the main problem facing the collective on the farm, including the weeding of the land and farm, Yulduz says that she does not know what it clipping of the tips of the cotton bush, last another could be. Regarding any health problems she and four months during which last year she made a her household may have, she says: “ Man jonsakht total of S20 (US$7). The farm gave her an shodam! (‘I’ve become tough!’). The elements do additional S30 (US$10) last summer when Mehri not harm me.” But she goes on to say that the dust was preparing for her daughter’s wedding. She in the cotton fields bothers her and that she has also earned S180 (US$60) for picking cotton from some problems with her legs especially during late the end of August to end of December. Her total fall and winter when working in the cold fields. cash earnings from cotton therefore was S258 (US$85) or S21.5 (US$7)/month in 2004. Yulduz’ household is not indebted to anyone. All of th the ten children have worked in the cotton fields at Mehri’s 17 year old son who is in the 11 grade one time or another and none has pursued higher contributes to the family’s meagre income by education. When asked as to her thoughts on selling plastic shopping bags at the local market. improving her life, Yulduz says: “I’ve grown old. Though two of Mehri’s brother-in-laws are Let my children work.” Four of her sons are working working abroad, they provide no financial in Russia. Three send back money regularly to the assistance to her. She says, however, that her household. The fourth is in jail in St. Petersburg, due family is not indebted financially to anyone. Mehri to what she claims as, accusations of burglary. has a small plot of presidential land (5 sotiqs or 0.05ha) but has no certificate verifying such ownership or land-use right. She also does not have any papers indicating how much shares she owns in the collective farm. Mehri has an additional 10 sotiqs (0.1ha) of land which is actually an empty lot meant for the family’s yet to be built house. She mostly grows wheat on the said plots. Mehri is not aware as to the amount of debt which the collective farm owes to investors.
When asked what she would prefer to grow if it was her decision, Mehri says that she would continue growing cotton on the collective farm because …
“ghuzapoya [dried cotton stalks ] is essential for us. ”
Old and wise in Chorboq village, Khatlon
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Mehri says that the main problem encountered by Female Farmer Case Study No. 12 her family is lack of proper place to live (she and the children currently live with her in-laws). The uralniso is 44 and lives in a village in the main problem of Mehri’s village, in her opinion, is N the lack of permanent employment. She doesn’t Bokhtar district located in the western part or know what the main problem of the collective farm Qurghonteppa zone of Khatlon province. She would be. On the health front, she says that in describes her ethnicity as Tajik. Nuralniso’s addition to having a child with disabilities, she parents or grandparents moved to Khatlon from herself experiences high blood pressure, irregular what used to be the Leninabad (now Soghd) heart beat, rheumatism and back pain. There is no province several decades past. Nuralniso’s husband clinic in Mehri’s village where she and others can died twenty years ago. She has never remarried. refer to when sick. She has one child and now two grandchildren ages 4 and 1.5 years. Nuralniso lives in a household She would like to see farm wages in the collective comprised of five people. She has been working in farm to increase to at least S100 (US$33)/month, the local collective farm (which she says has been since that would better provide for her family’s recently transformed into a dehqon farm) for the living. Mehri also wishes for payments to be on past 25 years. She used to work in the nearby town time, and for the farm to provide comfortable work of Qurghonteppa as a dishwasher in the milk conditions for the mostly female workers. She asks factory years ago and quit when they stopped that assistance be given to widows, such as herself, paying her wages. Now, the only income of the so that they can bring up their children without household is Nuralniso’s earnings from the cotton worries. Among other things, Mehri wishes that an farm and the meagre pensions of Nuralniso’s international organization would aid her family to farther- and mother-in-laws. construct their house on the plot of land which they currently use to grow wheat. She says that the farm management regularly promises to pay wages in full and on time, but regularly breaks its promise. Last year aside from minimal monthly earnings from the cotton farm prior to the harvest season, Nuralniso made S100 (US$33) from picking close to a tonne of cotton in four months at the rate of 10 dirams (3 cents)/kg of raw cotton. After the harvest season, Nuralniso was able to collect about 200 bundles of dried cotton stalks from the field. When asked if working in the cotton fields is profitable, she responds: “It used to be, [but not any longer]”. Nuralniso’s household has 0.03ha of land by their house which they use as a kitchen garden in addition to 0.07ha of presidential land. They grow wheat, tomatoes, potatoes and other vegetables on their land. Nuralniso does not have any land in her own name. She says that though she knows the farm she works on is indebted to investors, she has no idea by how much. Nuralniso says that if the choice of what to sow on the collective farm was hers, she would grow food crops. She says that while working on the cotton fields during times of extreme cold and heat, she develops leg cramps and headaches. When asked what the shortcomings of her life are, the first thing she says is: “I need land [in my name]”. She also wishes that the collective farm would pay her wage arrears. She has no hopes of ever having her Soviet monument to cotton production, Kulob own private farm. She will not even try applying for land. She says: “They will give the land to the same rich people and my application would remain standing”.
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Female Farmers Focus Group B become primarily women’s occupation. Some of the men abroad send monthly remittances of US$50-100 to their families in Tajikistan. Others, Gulshan is a village and centre of a jamoat of the after leaving, have never been heard again by their same name in the Farkhor district of Khatlon families. They may have not been able to secure province. According to Zeynura Musoeva, the permanent work, may have found a second wife female head of the Gulshan jamoat , the total and abandoned their family in Tajikistan, or they population of the jamoat is 10,250 people scattered may have died due to work accidents or having among 1,127 households living in five villages been a victim of xenophobic hate crimes in Russia. (Gulshan, Navobod, Boostan, Davlatobod, and Boboafsal). There are a total of 4,500ha of arable Ms Musoeva repeats the government accepted land in the jamoat , with 2,500 being irrigated motto that cotton is a strategic crop and thus (2,300 of which is sowed in cotton and a mere 200 profitable. She also believes, or at least pretends to planted in wheat). Nearly all households have believe, that the reason the farm workers in her irrigated presidential lands as well which were jamoat are not getting paid on time is that they do doled out to them from a total of 61ha of land in not work hard enough! In Gulshan and other mid-1990s by a government decree, with land sizes villages, the production of cotton is promoted and ranging anywhere from 3 to 7 sotiqs (0.03- is mandatory by the local government officials and 0.07ha), on which they mostly grow wheat, and undertaken at the expense of growing food crops vegetables such as beans. Households also have such as wheat and vegetables. Among other small plots of land or kitchen gardens attached to problems encountered in this jamoat , according to their homes. Despite the importance of such Ms Musoeva, is the lack of proper facilities for agricultural lands, they are never large and farm workers. During Soviet times, farm workers productive enough to produce sufficient food to were able to receive complementary warm meals feed a whole household. What used to be several and had special communal places to rest properly socialist collective farms ( kolkhozy ) have now been adjacent to the cotton fields. Since independence restructured under the land reform and and the ensuing civil war, the farm infrastructure privatization programme: There are a total of 103 has become dilapidated or, as the communal collective dehqon (‘peasant’) farms in the same resting halls have, the infrastructure has been sold jamoat and 12 private dehqon farms ranging in size off for cash to pay for jamoat expenses. from 3-11ha. Ms Musoeva invites a number of mostly young Only two of the dehqon farms are in the name of female members of the jamoat who work in the women, one of the women being the jamoat cotton fields to her office and an impromptu focus leader, herself. Since the onset of privatization in group session ensues. There are 14 girls and young 1997 in the area, like other parts of Tajikistan, the women, around 15-22 years in age with a 42-year farmland has steadily accumulated debt mainly due old mother of one of the girls present, in addition to cotton farming. To acquire one’s own private to head of the jamoat (Ms Musoeva) and the dehqon farm, one has to purchase the per hectare jamoat accountant. debt associated with the land. For this reason alone, says Ms Musoeva, “most people prefer to “We would be happy if they’d pay us !,” work on the collective dehqon farms and are not eager to have their own private dehqon farms.” laments one young woman. Another complains: Gulshan has 1,010ha of land under cotton cultivation. According to Ms Musoeva, the “The people in charge do not pay us what middlemen investors put in around US$280-300/ha they promise. Last year, I made total wages of worth of agronomic inputs for cotton production [only] 55 somonis [(US$18) from working on each year. She says that through these investments, which the middlemen count as credit to the farm, the cotton farm ] for the whole year ! the cotton debt has approached US$900/ha in ” Golshan. At the same time, the productivity of the Yet one more of the women present says: “For cotton crop has, if anything, decreased throughout. cleaning the drainage canals for a whole day, I This year, the jamoat is expecting cotton yields of made 70 dirams (US$0.23)”. Another says: “We 18 centiners (1.8 tonnes)/ha—a relatively low work in the cotton fields since we have no figure. alternative. We also cannot complain to anyone [regarding our low or non-existent wages and Due to meagre incomes, much of the adult male gloomy conditions]. We are afraid of being fired population has left for Russia in recent years. from our jobs.” The women claim that they have Working in the cotton fields has thus gradually
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not seen any dehqon farm certificates entitling remaining sovkhozy from the socialist era, and them shares to the land they work on. remains government-owed. It specializes in producing cotton seeds. There are 42 households According to Ms Musoeva, many of the young and a total of 400 residents in Pakhtakor. women suffer from low blood pressure and anaemia. The women agree with one of their An impromptu focus group was conducted in the colleagues who says that “if land was under our cotton fields of Pakhtakor with the cotton workers control, we would mainly plant wheat for (all women) and the head of the brigade and consumption.” Most of the young women present mahalla or ‘community’ (both men). According to in the room have been working in the cotton fields the women present, work in the way of plowing, in one capacity or another since they were in the preparing the land and taking care of the cotton second grade or as young as 8 years of age. crop commences in the month of February. It continues until the end of August, immediately Though in the Soviet times each member of a after which the harvest season begins. In 2004, the given farm only worked in his/her assigned farm farm workers (still referred to by its Soviet term and the salary earned from that work was sufficient ‘kolkhozchi’) were given S40 (US$13) wages three to meet household needs, today with the advent of times during the pre-harvest period. Aside from farm privatization and the consequent significant cash payments, in 2004, the sovkhoz management lowering of wages, many rural folk see the need to paid in-kind wages of 14-18 litres of cotton seed work in more than one farm. At least one of the oil and 230kg of wheat flour to each worker. women present says that she works in three Regarding their monthly allowance, one young different farms to make additional income. The woman says: “The earnings we make from cotton jamoat is also facing a problem with educational are not enough. If they would pay us at least S150 opportunities. One woman says: “I’d like to (US$50) per month [she smiles], our lives would become a teacher, but my family cannot afford the be better.” school expenses”. In recent years, the government has created special scholarships for rural folk to During the harvest season, the farm paid 12 dirams pursue higher education in the cities. Such (S0.12 or US$0.03) per kilo of raw cotton picked. scholarships, however, are extremely few and are Each female worker in the harvest season, known to be tainted with corruption with district according to a woman present, is able to pick authorities doling them out to relatives and people anywhere up to 60-80 kg of cotton per day, and who are already well-to-do. Ms Musoeva says that with the help of other members of the family, each in the past couple of years, out of 300 high school household can pick up to 150-200 kg of cotton/day graduates from her jamoat , only one received a (likely in peak of the harvest season) for a total of government scholarship to study in the university. 1.5 to 2.5 tonnes of raw cotton picked for the season. (According to Khoshvaqt Juraev, head of a the sovkhoz , who has been at his position for the past four years, in 2004, cotton yields in his farm were on the average 3.0 tonnes/ha 125 —an impressive yield and well above the national average of less than 2 tonnes/ha.) The bookkeeper present among the women claims, however, that the average yield for 2004 was 2.67 tonnes/ha. According to the mahalla leader, several years past, when farm profits were up, the sovkhoz even sent one member to Saudi Arabia for the Islamic Hadj as reward for having produced a record 4.7 tonnes/ha yield! The farm has signed future contracts for yields of 2.2 tonnes/ha for 2005. This Children of cotton workers in Beshkent cotton farm may be the only farm in Tajikistan which is not indebted to any entity.
Households in the village of Pakhtakor, like many Female Farmers Focus Group C others throughout Tajikistan, were each given
Pakhtakor (‘Cotton Worker’) is the name of a 125 jamoat Dehqon Farms Association of Tajikistan [‘Ittifoghi village in the Sitorayi Sorkh (‘Red Star’) of Khojagihoi Dehqoni va Sohibkoroni Jomhurii Yovon district of Khatlon province. True to its Tojikiston’], Fermer [‘Farmer’] 2 (11), February 2005. name, Pakhtakor is primarily a cotton growing village and farm. The farm is one of the few
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presidential lands equivalent to 0.5 sotiq has a size of 3,100 hectares, and which according (0.005ha)/household member in the mid- to late- to the mahalla leader produced around 3,000 1990s. Households in this village received tonnes of raw cotton in 2004. The work brigade of anywhere between 0.03-0.07ha of presidential this village has 50ha of land wherein 350 lands. The women claim that aside from households work with an average of 10-12 sotiqs documents for their homes, no household has been (0.1-0.12ha) of land assigned to each household. given land deeds for presidential or other property Every household has its own presidential land plot ownership or shareholdings. The sovkhoz has as well, which is on the average around 6 sotiqs recently divided some of its land into seven private (0.06ha) on which households normally plant corn, dehqon farms (each approximately 5ha in size), wheat and potatoes. In 2004, says the mahalla plus three other dehqon farms which are located in leader, potatoes did very well in Khatlon, with the nearby hills. The women claim that they are potato prices having had drastically fallen in the not invited to any of the business meetings of the local markets. farm. However, they seem generally content with Though ‘presidential lands’ were distributed to their lives. households in the village as early as 1995, According to the mahalla leader, there is a certificates of ownership or right of use for such problem with lack of potable water, however. lands have yet to be handed out to the households. Some women, especially during summer, may be [Even during Soviet times, there were some form tempted to drink from the irrigation canals, he of land or property certificates. Households in says, due to thirst and lack of sufficient available rural and urban areas are known to have been boiled water, which can then lead to stomach given papers indicating that the home they live in illnesses. “If we complain about the lack of is theirs to use]. drinking water, the leaders tell us: ‘If you don’t The women claim that they work long hours like it, you can resign!’,” says one woman. The beginning in the month of April each year. They mahalla leader says nearly all the women have had have yet to receive a substantial part of their wages malaria one time or another. Merlin, a British owed to them from 2004, however. “They paid us NGO, and US-based C ARE were among the groups until November 10 th [during the harvest season] which used to assist some of the households of and then they stopped,” says one woman. Pakhtakor with food and medicine. Regarding earnings, another woman says: “Four people in my household together picked a total of 180-220kg/day of raw cotton and were paid on six occasions around S50-80” (US$17-27)/payment or S300-480 (US$100-160) for the harvest season. A 41 year old woman present says that the kolkhoz (what is now a collective dehqon farm) owes each household around S500-600 (US$170-200) in back pay. “When we ask for our back pay, the head of the kolkhoz [farm leader] never listens,” says one woman. Another says, however, that in cases of emergency, when a sickness in the family is known to have occurred for example, the same farm leader has been known to donate money so that one
can buy the necessary medicine. A 38 year old Focus Group in Pakhtakor, Yovon district woman present objects, however, to that description: “We [my household] are owed S700
Female Farmers Focus Group D (US$233) by the kolkhoz. My 13 year old daughter became sick with typhoid and the kolkhoz head refused to help us. We had to borrow money from Dilbar is a village in the Mehnatobod jamoat of others to cure her”. Another women says: “We’ve Bokhtar district in the Qurghonteppa zone of had S380 (US$127) owed to us in back pay, of Khatlon province. Dilbar has a population of 1,500 which they’ve only paid us S30. Instead of money, people, forming 210 households. Twelve female they’ve promised us milk, farm animals and even farm workers are invited to the home of the male fertilizer.” She is not hopeful that she will get mahalla (‘neighbourhood’) leader for an paid. “I have 3 kids,” she says. “I need at least impromptu focus group session. The women are one bag of flour each month.” On top of food, the part of the Mehvar collective dehqon farm, which women are expected to buy their own farming
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tools. “I have to buy my own hoe, which will cost can use as fuel and also can sell for cash (at about me S25 (US$8.3),” says one woman. The mahalla 50 dirams/bundle). Households can pick anywhere leader claims that the collective farm is from 50-400 bundles of the cotton stalks, worth US$700,000 in debt. between S25-200 (US$8-66). The women claim they have no certificates for During the Soviet era, says one of the women, their residential units either. They say that they used to work hard, were paid on time and when in the past they have asked for their sufficiently, between 40-50 Roubles (US$80- papers, local authorities have rebuffed them or 100)/month, and were provided daily warm meals. demanded S70 (US$23) in return for their (End-of-the-year hefty cash bonuses was also papers, an excessive sum for most rural common then). The same woman claims that a (50 households in what appears to be a sign of kg) bag of flour then cost 12 Rubles, which was
corruption amongst the officials. only a relatively small portion of one person’s
monthly wage. Today, a bag of flour costs between “Before the war [during the Soviet era] we used to S50-60 (US$20), far more that the total of work from 4 am to 1 pm in the cotton fields. If the anyone’s monthly farm wage. “We can’t even plan was reached, [the authorities] would give us afford to buy tea!” exclaims one woman. The special gifts. They also used to give us mid-day mahalla leader says that during the cotton picking meals for free. Now we are on our own. We season, some of the villagers catch malaria since consume a lot of non [bread] and tea as our midday mosquitoes can live inside the cotton crop. meal. We try to have at least one hot meal a day. Households are too poor to see a doctor or have The same woman complains about the high prices their blood analyzed. They often purchase drugs of food items: “Potatoes can be quite expensive.” without a doctor’s prescription, which can lead to She also says that her household uses a 1.5 litre dangerous consequences. Another woman says that bottle of cooking oil every two weeks. she has high blood pressure and she also points at her throat, which is likely a reference to goitre, a disease of iodine deficiency. “Our lives have been turned inside and out,” she exclaims. Nearly all agree that if the use of land was under their control they would plant a combination of cotton, wheat and vegetables. “If they pay us, we’ll work hard,” says one of the women. “We need funds to repair our homes,” says another. According to the mahalla leader, there was much damage to the village during the civil war (1992- 93), with most homes having been burnt as a result of war-induced arson. Nearly all villagers, who are of the Gharmi ethno-regional origin, fled to Af- ghanistan during the war. Among other things, the village school was burnt. Only in 2000, with US$43,000 of funds from U NICEF , was the school rebuilt. The war also produced 45 widows in the village. Nearly all female-headed households have a son working in Russia to help with finances. “Much of the livelihood of people is due to migrant remittances,” says the mahalla leader. All together, there are 116 male members of households working abroad (nearly all in Russia).
Cotton worker in village near Qurghonteppa When the women are asked what suggestions they have to improve their lives, one woman says that a small sewing factory or a juice making plant would be good options. The women in the group have an Most of the women present have been working in education level of between grades 7 to 11. Today, the cotton fields for many years. “Since the time I however, some girls do not attend school and are knew myself [as a child], I’ve been working in the illiterate, and those who do attend do not receive cotton fields,” said a woman. Another says that the adequate levels of education due to the shortage of main incentive of picking cotton is the right to use teachers and the general deterioration in the quality the dried cotton stalks ( ghuzapoya ), which a family of schools. (Tajikistan is thus one of few countries
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in the world where the level of education of the man. He says that anywhere from 26-30 new generation is lower than the old). households (a total of 185 people of mostly Pamiri ethno-regional origin) had their former homes destroyed in districts in eastern Khatlon due to ecological catastrophes (mainly mudslides caused by excessive precipitation and likely deforestation). “It was our destiny to come to this place!” says a woman in the group. Another person says: “I came here since I was promised land [by the government]”. Indeed, in recent years, the GOT has encouraged emigration and resettlement from other parts of Tajikistan to Beshkent. Several hundred households have been relocated from other districts and given S1,500 (US$500) as incentive to relocate, half of the money having
been in the form of grant and the other in long- Meat market in a Khatlon bazaar 126 term no interest loan.
Female Farmers Focus Group E
Beshkent is the name of a newly formed district in the southwesternest point of Tajikistan bordering Afghanistan to the south and Uzbekistan to the west. The district has historically had a low settled population due to its extremely dry climate. Beshkent, however, is a place with the last vestiges of Soviet irrigation and thus cotton planning in Tajikistan. Canals built in the 1980s brought in irrigation water meant for cotton cultivation and thus set the stage for new human settlements as well. A district official says: “There is no other work here other than on the cotton fields. Wages are quite low and the people have few alternatives.” The majority of the population in Beshkent are of Uzbek ethnicity. Thus most of the people working on the cotton fields are Uzbek women. The same local official claims that the district has so far been using 6,000 hectares of irrigated land and that there is at least another 6,000ha waiting to be developed. Much of the land in Beshkent is suffering from extreme cases of soil salinity, a consequence of improper irrigation and drainage practices. As a result of saline soils and extremely low precipitation, crop yields have fallen substantially, and the growing of rainfed wheat is nearly impossible.
A group of mostly women (anywhere from 16 to 60 years of age) in a village several kilometres Cotton worker in Beshkent, Khatlon from the district centre of Beshkent is approached by the Oxfam team. One man among the group says that many people in the village are among newly arrived and resettled emigrants from other 126 parts of Khatlon province. The team asks the group Meeting with official from Firuza jamoat , Beshkent district, Khatlon province, March 26, 2005. as to the reason they migrated to Beshkent. “We came here because we were landless,” says the
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The farm workers among the group say they are adequate agronomic inputs, such as machinery, paid about S10 (US$3.3)/month as wages. They had to give the land back to the farm authorities. say they have no shares in the local collective She also says that she has lived in the same house farms nor do they have certificates of ownership of in Beshkent for the past 27 years, but has yet to the homes they live in. They work as mere see her ownership or right-to-use certificate. temporary workers with no apparent labour laws During harvest time, farm workers are paid being applied in their case. They often are forced anywhere from a mere 6 dirams to 20 dirams to change the farm they work on and have no (US$0.02-0.07)/kg of cotton picked. One of the guarantee in being paid their due wages. In 2002, young ladies in the group says that in 2003, she for example, some present in the focus group picked 1.5 tonnes of cotton earning a total of S60 claim, many worked on the Benazir dehqon farm (US$24) for about four months of work beginning in the district but never received the money owed in mid-August. Another claims that in 2004, she them for the hand harvesting of cotton nor did they picked as much as 60-70kg/day for a total of 1.7 receive the promised wheat as in-kind wages. Due tonnes of cotton for the season and earned a total to the extremely low wages, to maximize their of S188 (US$62). During the harvest season, many earnings the same farm workers work in more than workers begin their day at 6 am and work until late one farm during the harvest season. at night. Not all the farms pay as meagrely. One Households have as much as 30 sotiqs (0.3ha) of woman says that in 2004, she worked for three presidential lands, much of the land however is high months on a farm which paid wages of about S1.5 in salinity and nearly useless for planting anything. (US$0.5)/day. The same farm provided a free One woman says: “We planted 95kg of wheat on midday lunch for workers.
our land and harvested 75kg!” Households claim that they had received their presidential land plots, Due to the widespread poverty, especially but only a day prior to the visit of prime minister among the ethno-regional Pamiri emigrants to Oqilov from Dushanbe. As to the type of crop they Beshkent, many cannot afford to consume would prefer to cultivate, several people say they nutritious meals, at times substituting what is would prefer to plant rice and wheat if it was their known as gardob (a mixture of flour and hot choice. But the group complains about the lack of water) or sher-choi (a mixture of weak tea and adequate irrigation water. Still, one woman is milk, when available) and bread for the main known to have produced 3 tonnes of rice in 50 (and possibly only) meal of the day. To cope, sotiqs (half a hectare) of land and sold the rice for some families have sold the few valuable items S1.2 (US$0.4)/kg. they had. Others beg for bread from the wealthier locals. To earn a living wage, many among the male population emigrate abroad to seek work. One man said: “I can’t remember what According to a district official as many as 251 shurbo [a Central Asian thick soup or stew of people from the district (94% of them being men) are known to be working abroad (mostly in Russia, potatoes, vegetables and beef ] tastes like ! with some in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan). A ” woman in the group says: “My husband went to Russia in September of last year after having The harvest season sees various sicknesses, such as borrowed US$300.” He has since sent US$200 typhoid, diarrhoea, and skin rashes. Furthermore, back to the household and is expected to sent there is no policy of giving time off to pregnant more. Another woman said, however, that both her women. Last year, at least one woman gave birth son and husband have left for Russia and she has while working in the cotton field. The summers are not heard anything from them since their departure extremely hot in Beshkent and many of the months ago. newcomers, most of whom are from the higher Several in the group say that the main problems of altitude and mountainous regions of eastern farming in the district are nearly the total lack of Khatlon districts of Tajikistan, are especially availability of technical machinery such as uncomfortable with Beshkent’s climate. harvesters, insufficient and inadequate land, When the group is asked what it would like to see insufficiency of farm wages and lack of happen in the village, several people respond that government-financed agricultural credit. An older they need humanitarian food aid. They also would woman in the group, an ethnic Uzbek, who is a like to have a tractor provided to them to be able to brigade leader with nearly three decades of work the land. The government has plans of farming experience, says that she was given 60ha providing credit to local residents. An impressive of land (likely under a rental agreement) to new building has been erected in the village which cultivate cotton and other crops, but due to lack of will house a government microcredit bank.
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Appendix Two: Interview and Focus Group Questions
District:______Jamoat : ______Qishloq: ______Farm Name:______Age: ______Ethnicity: ______Regional Origin: ______Household Size: ______Marital Status: ______How many children do you have? How many of them live with you? Are you a member of a farm? Yes No Since when have you been working for the farm? What type of farm? Kolkhoz Sovkhoz Collective Dehqon Private Dehqon How many members of your household work on the farm? What are your responsibilities on the farm? Do you receive wages from the farm? How much (per month, per year)? Do you have a work contract? Who is the primary income earner in your family? What does that person do? Is there a member of your family who works in Russia (or abroad)? How many? Are they/ is s/he able to send money back? How often? How much? Do you or any of your household members own land? If yes, how much (in hectares, sotiqs [100 sotiqs=1 hectare])? Do you have deeds to your land? How many years have you had this land? How much land did your HH own 10 years ago? What does your farm primarily produce? (Cotton, wheat, vegetables, … ?) Who decides what to grow on your farm? If you could decide what crop to grow, what would you grow? Why do you work on the cotton farm? Is it your preference to do so? What would you like to do instead of working on the cotton farm? In your opinion, what is the main problem of your household? What is the main problem of your qishloq (village)? What is the main problem of your farm? What is the main health problem in your household? Do you think it is related to farm work? Is there anything else you would like to share with us today?
‘White Gold’ or Women’s Grief? The Gendered Cotton of Tajikistan – Oxfam GB October 2005
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