Uzbekistan takes aim at sex offenders amid spike in reported crimes against minors

TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan is taking a stand on children's safety, while at the same time implicitly rejecting its Soviet past.

In the first half of 2023, authorities prosecuted 257 suspects in connection with charges of sex crimes against minors.

Statistics show a twofold increase in reported sex crimes in the past four years, but such numbers come amid expanded government measures to support the victims of such crimes and a recent move to criminalize domestic violence.

The higher numbers mean that more victims are reporting sexual crimes, said NeMolchi.uz (Don't Be Silent) website founder Irina Matviyenko.

Breaking with secretive Soviet legacy

Such openness contrasts with the legacy of the Soviet Union, which covered up crimes, disasters and other negative phenomena that authorities thought would reflect adversely on the system.

That thinking was evident in 1986, when the Kremlin remained silent about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster for two days.

It is evident now during Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Among many other examples of Moscow's secretiveness in the face of bad war news, it initially refused in April 2022 to admit that Ukraine had sunk its Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Moskva.

"If in the past there were, say, 10,000 incidents of sexual violence against children in the country, the statistics said there were only 100 because only 100 people reported them to the authorities," Matviyenko said.

"Now the statistics show there were 200 incidents, but that's 200 out of the same 10,000," she said. "If the numbers are going up, that means that people have actually begun to seek help more often."

In April, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law guaranteeing women and minors protection from domestic violence. Before that, domestic violence was considered an administrative offense rather than a crime.

In the first half of 2023, about 20,000 cases of domestic violence against women and girls were recorded in Uzbekistan, and another 2,700 women were the victims of various crimes.

Mirziyoyev expanded legal and psychological assistance for women in need of these services, and ordered the creation of social service centers functioning as one-stop shops in every district.

He also called for the formation of mobile groups of psychologists, lawyers and social workers, and for the creation of call centers to provide social support to women who have been victims of violence.

During a July 28 meeting with officials from the Interior Ministry (MVD) in Fergana, Mirziyoyev pointed to the recent rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl as an example of "how difficult of a situation has developed".

The Uzbek Prosecutor General's Office on July 22 announced it had arrested a 17-year-old in Fergana in connection with the incident, after the girl's body was discovered a few days earlier.

In an earlier case, a Tashkent court on May 26 handed down a life sentence to the rapist and murderer of a 12-year-old girl. She disappeared on January 31, and her body was found one day later.

Preventing sex crimes

Uzbeks are weighing how to deter and punish such offenders.

"A list of those who have committed sex crimes against children, along with their photos, should be publicly accessible," said longtime teacher Indira Khudaishukurova of Fergana.

There needs to be harsher punishment for abusers of minors, she said.

Additionally, she said, sex education, hygiene and personal safety should be taught to schoolchildren starting from the later preschool years.

"Psychologists, educators and doctors should work together to develop the methodology of these lessons," Khudaishukurova said.

"Among other things, we need to explain to children that they must not allow strangers to touch them or take them to buy candy and so on."

Journalist Timur Yuldashev, also of Fergana, called for publicizing lists of such criminals.

"We need to create a registry of these perpetrators' names, photos and stories of their lawless deeds," he said. "Let everyone see them and know them by sight."

Doing so could help lower the number of sex crimes and serve as a deterrent, he said.

As of July 11, a registry of individuals convicted of a number of crimes began to operate in Uzbekistan, administered by the Uzbek cabinet.

Sex offenders who appear on this list will lose the right to work in educational, health-related and other facilities where children are present.

Uzbekistan's laws are on the right track, but more needs to be done in relation to cybercrimes related to the sexual exploitation of children, said Matviyenko of NeMolchi.uz.

"For example, in Uzbekistan there's no separate article on child pornography," she said, referring to the country's Criminal Code.

"It’s just part 3 of the general article on production and distribution [of pornography]," she said. "But there needs to be a separate, full-fledged article on child pornography with various aggravating circumstances. It's a separate type of crime."