Uzbekistan: Parliament passes long-overdue legislation criminalizing domestic violence
Reacting to Uzbekistan’s upper house of Parliament passing legislation that criminalizes domestic violence, Heather McGill, Amnesty International’s Central Asia Researcher, said:
“Women rights activists and human rights defenders in Uzbekistan have been campaigning for years for better protection from domestic violence. Today, Uzbekistan is becoming the fifth country in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to criminalize domestic violence as a separate criminal offence under the law, after Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Ukraine.”
On 6 April, the Senate of Oliy Majlisi of Uzbekistan unanimously adopted a package of amendments to the country’s Criminal and Administrative Codes, which criminalize domestic violence and provide women and children with additional protection mechanisms. The amendments will come into force after the President’s signing.
The amendments, for instance, establish liability for the harassment and stalking of women, make early conditional release for sexual offenders impossible, and exclude ignorance of the age of sex crime victims as a way to avoid harsher criminal punishments.