Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights meets with non-governmental organizations from Kazakhstan

Committee on Economic, Social
  and Cultural Rights 

25 February 2019

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this morning met with non-governmental organizations that briefed it on the implementation of the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Kazakhstan, whose report will be considered during the week.  No civil society organizations were present in the room to engage with the Committee on the implementation of the Covenant in Mauritius, whose report will also be examined.

Speakers said that for many individuals in Kazakhstan, the tightening of citizen registration rules in 2016 had created additional obstacles to accessing a wide range of social services, such as identification documents, marriage registration, health and education, as well as the payment of basic social benefits.  This was particularly true for urban migrants, young and large families, people with disabilities and homeless people.  The Committee should urge Kazakhstan to provide alternative options for registration of citizens and ensure that social benefits were provided on the basis of citizenship rather than residency.

The 30 per cent quota for women representation in the judiciary and public sectors had not been met, restrictions to women’s full participation in the labour marked continued, and the gender gap in pay stood at 67.80 per cent.  Child labour persisted in rural areas, where access to education for all children was precarious.  Particularly alarming was the restricted access to education for the children of migrant workers, migrant children, and children in juvenile adaptation centres.  Speakers also raised concern about discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, and the scourge of drug addiction, with several non-governmental organizations lamenting the approach focused on repression rather than on public health, public education and social support systems for the most marginalized groups. 

Speaking in the discussion were Paperlab, Union of Crises Centres, Foundation Aman Saulyk, Kazakhstan Children Fund, Kazakhstan Parliament Development Fund, ADC Memorial, Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, Kazakhs Union of People Living with HIV, and Feminita - Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative.

The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 February, to review the fifth periodic report of Mauritius (E/C.12/MUS/5).

Statements

Paperlab said that the tightening of citizen registration rules in 2016 had created additional obstacles for many individuals in accessing a wide range of social services, such as identification documents, marriage registration, health and education, as well as the payment of basic social benefits.  This was particularly true for urban migrants, young and large families, people with disabilities and homeless people, among others.  The Government should provide alternative options for registration of citizens, untie the social benefits from the residency, and ensure that the citizenship was the only basis on which to accessing them.

Union of Crises Centres emphasized that the legislation on non-discrimination was particularly problematic, especially in the part related to legal assistance and property ownership.  In addition, the 30 per cent quota for women’s representation in the judiciary and public authorities had not been not met.

Foundation Aman Saulyk stressed the need to establish proper institutions to provide mental health services and facilitate access of young people to such centres.  The speaker raised the issue of the efficacy and the limits of drug substitute programmes for underage drug addicts.

Kazakhstan Children’s Fund raised concern about unequal access to education for undocumented migrant children, those with ex-soviet passports, ethnic Kazaks without proper documentation with regard to place of origin, and irregular migrants.  Another issue of concern was violence against children in schools and foster homes, which called for monitoring of conditions in those institutions and stricter punishment for offenders.  There was a need to cut corruption in the school system, and many problems stemmed from how the state system and agencies operated.  The Ombudsman Office was unable to conduct monitoring, as it was hindered by lack of resources.

Kazakhstan Parliament Development Fund said that over the past 13 years, Kazakhstan had failed to deliver on its commitments under the Covenant, and implement its provisions including through the legislation and courts.  Kazakhstan had invested resources in improving the housing situation, but had focused on the construction rather than on the core problem, which was the access to housing.  There were large numbers of people without fixed abodes, and many lived in temporary housing in large cities; it would be many years before they received decent accommodation.  The legal challenges tended to benefit the state and commercial bodies instead of citizenry.

ADC Memorial said that in August 2018, the list of banned occupations for women in the labour code had been narrowed from 287 to 219 professions in more than 20 spheres.  Women were excluded from working in the transportation sector, for example, including driving tractors and trucks or other machines crucial to the country’s large agricultural sector.  Women were denied the opportunity to choose a job and decide on their own priorities for life and faced social pressures to prioritize giving birth to children over taking professional work.  The gender gap in pay was as high as 67.80 per cent.  While education was guaranteed by law to all children, including non-citizens, in reality the children of migrant workers and migrant minors faced restricted access.

Eurasian Harm Reduction Association said that Kazakhstan failed to provide opioid substitution therapy to people with drug dependence – in February 2019, less than one per cent had access to opioid substitute treatment.  The decision to stop expanding the programme coincided with the withdrawal of the support by the Global Fund, which however had not invested into the development of a civil society monitoring mechanisms to hold the country accountable for the implementation of its commitment to continue opioid substitution therapy without any discrimination.

Kazakhs Union of People Living with HIV raised concern that the main focus of the drug policy was on law enforcement and not on health care.  Drug use, including the possession for personal use, was criminalized, and the repressive approach was one of the factors that contributed to the increased vulnerability of drug users to HIV - more than half of all new infections were due to the use of non-sterile needles.  The Committee should urge Kazakhstan to transform the focus of its drug policy from law enforcement to public health, public education and social support systems for the most marginalized groups.

Feminita - Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative said that criminal legislation contained provisions that discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, which in addition created an impression that the public were in need of protection from gay men and women as they were more prone to committing violent sexual offences.  Due to prevailing unpleasant experiences in health care system, lesbian, bisexual and trans women preferred self-medication at home and did not visit HIV centres or benefited from HIV focused programmes.

Discussion

The Committee Experts asked about the involvement of civil society organizations in the preparation of the report and restrictions on the activities of civil society organizations.  On employment, they asked whether trade unions still experienced problems in registering and operating, the reasons that excluded women from so many jobs and professions and whether this was a result of cultural or legal problem. 

Non-governmental organizations were asked to provide further information on resident registration, the plans concerning the adoption of the antidiscrimination legislation, whether the unequal access to quality education existed throughout the country or only in remote areas, and the explanations for such large-scale drug abuse problem.  Finally, what happened with children cotton pickers in November, did they return to school?

Responding, representatives of non-governmental organizations said that the report of Kazakhstan had been prepared by the authorities without the involvement of the civil society actors.  The Kazakh trade unions were unable to provide the kind of support required by workers, as legislation favoured employers over employees: employers had the rights to define, for example, maternity leave or manipulate the nature of contracts to reduce wages, which left employees vulnerable.  There were many restrictions to the registration of trade unions; one such example were independent unions to advocate for rights of migrant workers.  

The list of banned occupations was a heritage of the ex-Soviet Union, and many countries had repealed or reviewed this list.  This process also showed how which professions defined as ‘dangerous’, had differed in each country and thus, revealed the discrepancies in the ways in which these were conceptualised as ‘harmful’ for women.  The imposed role of women as mothers, wives, or keepers of the home, was explained to be a part of culture, which made it difficult to overcome beliefs such as ‘forbidden’ occupations or the distinction between ‘male’ and ‘female’ professions.  Often women themselves did not consider these jobs due to the lack of access to education and better awareness of the professions they could undertake.

Registration of residency was governed by very stringent rules which required an applicant to either present papers of ownership or be accompanied by the landlord.  This created a problem for migrant workers, many of whom shared the same cramped accommodation, while many houses did not have legal addresses.  It was estimated that in Astana, up to 25 per cent of migrants had not been registered.
The registration rules should be relaxed and expanded to allow all citizens to register even in the absence of a legal address, while in the social benefits provision, social rights should be tied to an individualised electronic number rather than to a place of residence.

On housing, the speakers said that many citizens had been burdened with mortgages and that the housing situation had resulted in the sixth wave of social unrest. Speakers remarked that rural families tended to be bigger, and children were often involved in child labour, for instance, in cotton picking instead of being in school or studying from September to November.  These situations had been much worse further away from the centre of Kazakhstan, for instance, in the southern region. 

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