Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 - Tajikistan
| Publisher | Child Soldiers International |
| Publication Date | 20 May 2008 |
| Cite as | Child Soldiers International, Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 - Tajikistan, 20 May 2008, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/486cb135c.html [accessed 1 November 2019] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Population: 6.5 million (3.1 million under 18)
Government Armed Forces: 7,600
Compulsary Recruitment Age: 18
Voluntary Recruitment Age: 18
Voting Age: 18
Optional Protocol: acceded 5 August 2002
Other Treaties: GC AP I, GC AP II, CRC, ILO 138, ILO 182, ICC
Weapons training could begin in school for senior students. There were some allegations of illegal conscription of under-18s into the armed forces.
Context:
In May 2006 armed men, allegedly linked to the armed opposition group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) (see Uzbekistan entry), raided a Tajik-Kyrgyz frontier post; several of the attackers and Tajik and Kyrgyz security forces were killed in the ensuing fighting.1 During 2006 at least 30 alleged IMU members and 50 alleged members of the banned Islamic opposition party Hizb-ut-Tahrir were detained and many were sentenced to long prison terms after unfair trials.2
Tajikistan was a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), established in June 2001, comprising also China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan, whose goals included mutual co-operation in security matters.3
Until 2005 about half of Tajikistan's conscripts served with the Russian army, which protected Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan.4 In mid-2005 Russian forces withdrew from the border, handing over control to Tajik border guards, but retained several thousand troops at a military base in the capital, Dushanbe.5 There were also French and Indian air force bases in Tajikistan.6
Government:
National recruitment legislation and practice
The armed forces were largely conscripted. Conscription was provided for in the constitution. The Law on Universal Military Responsibility and Military Service required men aged 18-27 to do military service for 24 months, or 18 months for those with higher education.
In February 2006 the president noted that over 40 laws and decrees had come into force in the previous five years in the field of defence, including those to protect the rights and social interests of conscripts.7 Details of the amendments were not readily available.
The Law on Universal Military Responsibility and Military Service stated that alternative service could be carried out in accordance with legislation, but no legislation had been passed to provide for it. A group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were still campaigning in 2007 for an alternative service law, but there were fears that the government might delete the provision from the Law on Universal Military Responsibility and Military Service.8 In October 2007 the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses and two evangelical Christian groups were suspended for three months because of members' refusal to serve in the military.9
About 12,000 conscripts were called up every year.10 Dozens of cases were reported annually in which officers or officials took bribes to let conscripts avoid military service. The government repeatedly acknowledged the problem of corruption in the armed forces.11 One government official said parents did not want to send their children into the army because of poor food and living conditions.12 Enlistment targets were not met because young men left to find work in Russia or avoided conscription. In some cases under-age boys were reportedly rounded up by conscription officers who had failed to reach their targets. In 2004 nine senior military officials were sacked for enlistment offences and one senior officer was convicted of abuse of power by an army court. At least some of these cases reportedly involved under-age boys.13 Cases of under-age recruitment to fulfil quotas continued to be reported in 2006.14
Tajikistan prohibited the voluntary recruitment of under-18s to the armed forces, according to its declaration made on accession to the Optional Protocol in 2002.15
Military training and military schools
The Ministry of Defence participated in the development of educational standards, programs and methods for the preparation of civilians for military service.16 Students in senior school classes studied principles of military science to prepare them for military service.17 In 2006 one school sent 30 students to the Russian military base for five days where they were taught how to fire weapons.18
Students could take two-year courses at a military school in Dushanbe based on the Soviet-model Suvorov schools. On average about 100 students graduated every year and went on to study in the Military Institute of Tajikistan and abroad in Russia and other countries.19
Armed Groups:
In October 2004 a boy captured by security forces in the Pakistani border region of Waziristan said he been abducted with four younger boys from a village in Tajikistan and trafficked to Pakistan by masked Tajik men in 2002. The Pakistani military said he had been trained to plant mines and that armed groups were increasingly recruiting teenagers from Central Asia to carry out attacks.20 In Tajikistan there was scepticism that children had been abducted and trafficked from the country.21 In June 2006 the boy was released into the custody of a relief organization in Pakistan, which said he had been arrested by the Pakistani military in a madrasa (Islamic religious school) in Pakistan and unlawfully detained, and was being returned to his family.22
In May 2007 the State Committee on National Security stated that an Iranian citizen detained by the Tajik authorities had taken Tajikistani boys aged 10-15 to a neighbouring country purportedly for religious education, but in fact for training by armed groups. The State Committee on National Security did not specify which armed groups were implicated, how many boys were involved, or which country they were sent to.23
Developments:
International standards
Tajikistan ratified the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention 182 in June 2005.
1 Dadodjan Azimov, "Are Islamic militants regrouping in the Fergana Valley?", Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), 1 December 2006, www.iwpr.net; see also Amnesty International Report 2007, entry on Kyrgyzstan.
2 Amnesty International Report 2007.
3 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, www.sectsco.org.
4 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2004/2005, quoted in Derek Brett, Military Recruitment and Conscientious Objection: A Thematic Global Survey, Conscience and Peace Tax International, May 2006, p.11, http://cpti.ws.
5 Tajikistan Country Profile, BBC News, 23 March 2007; Vladimir Socor, "Russia's military presence in Tajikistan to be legalized and diluted", Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor, 6 October 2004 , www.jamestown.org; Zoya Pylenko, "Badakhshan: more poverty after Russian withdrawal", Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 16 November 2005, www.cacianalyst.org.
6 Shishir Gupta, "Tajik air base is ready, gives India its first footprint in strategic Central Asia", Indian Express, 25 February 2007, www.indianexpress.com; "France to boost air group in Tajikistan - embassy", RIA Novosti, 11 May 2006, http://en.rian.ru.
7 "Address of President Emomali Rakhmonov of the Republic of Tajikistan on the Occasion of Armed Forces Day of the Republic of Tajikistan and Defence of the Fatherland", presidential website, 23 February 2006, www.president.tj; . N. Dodov, "The Seventh Session of the Third Majlisi Mili Majlisi of the Republic of Tajikistan", Khovar News Agency, 16 November 2006, www.khovar.tj.
8 "Alternative Military Service Under Review", IWPR News Briefing Central Asia, 12 July 2007.
9 "Tajik officials ban Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists", Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), 23 October 2007, www.rferl.org.
10 O. Sidirov, "The armed forces of Tajikistan - yesterday and today", Gazeta.kz, 13 March 2007, www.gazeta.kz.
11 See, for example, "Address of President E. Rakhmonov on the Occasion of the 14th Anniversary of the Creation of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan", presidential website, 23 February 2007.
12 "Why doesn't your son serve in the army?", Avesta, 22 February 2007, www.avesta.tj.
13 Gulnora Amirshoeva, "Tajik army abuses tackled", IWPR, 5 November 2004.
14 Correspondence with confidential source,Dushanbe.
15 Declaration on accession to the Optional Protocol, www2.ohchr.org.
16 Law on Universal Military Responsibility and Military Service, Article 18.
17 "Cultural events have taken place at the Ministry of Defence to celebrate the forthcoming 23 February Armed Forces Day of the Republic of Tajikistan", Safina Television, undated, www.safina.tj.
18 Valentina Kondrashova, "Russian military personnel gave schoolboys lessons in initial military preparation", Asia Plus News Agency, 1 June 2006, www2.asiaplus.tj.
19 O. Sidirov, above note 10.
20 See, for example, "Qaeda using children for terrorism", Daily Times (Pakistan), 26 November 2004; "Tale of a lost militant", Reuters, 15 December 2004, both at www.dailytimes.com.pk.
21 "Why doesn't the 'Tajik boy' come home?", Khovar, 12 November 2004, at www.tajik-gateway.org.
22 "Innocent foreigners detained", Dawn, 31 May 2006, www.dawn.com; "Pakistani court orders release of two Tajik Al-Qaeda militants", KUNA (Kuwait News Agency), 5 June 2006.
23 "Terrorist accomplice detained in Tajikistan for recruiting teenagers to madrasah studies", Interfax, 23 May 2007, www.interfax-religion.com; "Tajik youths were trained as future mohajedins and suicide bombers", Regnum, 21 May2007, www.regnum.ru.
