Casualties Overview

The Tajikistan Mine Action Center (TMAC) reported six mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties for 2011. Two casualties were boys, one was an adult man and there were three casualties among deminers.[1] This represented a decrease from the total of 10 casualties which TMAC reported for 2010 which also included three casualties among deminers.[2]

TMAC registered 834 mine/ERW casualties (364 killed; 470 injured) for the period from 1992 to the end of 2011. Of the total known casualties, some 30% were children (99 children were killed and another 139 injured) and 88 were women.[3]

Cluster munition casualties

At least 164 casualties from unexploded submunitions were reported in Tajikistan until 2007. Most incidents occurred in the Rasht valley area. The exact timeline of incidents is not known.[4] No casualties from cluster munition remnants have been reported in Tajikistan since 2007.

Victim Assistance

Tajikistan is responsible for landmine survivors, cluster munition victims and survivors of other explosive remnants of war. Tajikistan has made commitment to ensure victim assistance through the Mine Ban Treaty. The total number of known mine/ERW survivors in Tajikistan is 470.[5]

Victim assistance since 1999[6]

Since the beginning of Monitor reporting, victim assistance improved in Tajikistan with its inclusion in the national mine action strategy in 2004, the recruitment of the Victim Assistance Officer in 2006 and the subsequent development and implementation of a national victim assistance program through the coordination of the national mine action center. From the beginning of Monitor reporting in 1999 until 2004, there were no dedicated programs assisting mine/ERW survivors in Tajikistan.

A TMAC needs assessment in 2008 identified the needs of the large majority of survivors. The national Victim Assistance Program was adjusted based on the needs.

Improvements in medical care have been reported since 2004 when medication and supply shortages were chronic and most facilities were said to be run-down. Particularly in mine/ERW affected areas, infrastructure remained poor due to under-funding and the mountainous terrain severely hampered access to existing services in the capital.

Between 2005 and 2009, the government gradually took on more responsibility for the State Enterprise Orthopedic Plant (SEOP);[7] it was handed over to full government management by the beginning of 2009. Adequate psychological support was mostly unavailable for survivors through the existing system. In response, the Victim Assistance Program held regular camps to begin to address those needs. Increasingly, economic reintegration projects were carried out and accomplished based on the needs identified in the survivor assessment survey, but the activities were not able to be implemented to the extent planned for most of the period due to funding constraints.

New disability legislation that is reportedly to be in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was adopted at the end of 2010.

In 2011, key areas of victim assistance were further developed, including prosthetics, referral, and psychological support capacity, while the victim assistance program continued to face significant challenges in sustainable planning due to unstable funding. The need for sustained funding was highlighted as a key challenge to ensuring that the victim assistance capacity which had been developed continued to benefit survivors.

Assessing victim assistance needs

TMAC maintained a database on mine/ERW casualties in Tajikistan. In 2011, a needs-assessment survey project was implemented by districts departments of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population (MLSPP), including in all mine-affected districts of Tajikistan. Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) and needs assessment questionnaires were collected from affected districts and quality-assured before being entered into the TMAC database for the subsequent evaluation and prioritization of survivors needs. This was planned to lead gradually to a fully-operational Victim Information System.[8]

Victim assistance coordination[9]

TMAC, through its Victim Assistance Program, worked in close collaboration with partners implementing victim assistance projects and to mobilize donor support. The TMAC-led Victim Assistance Coordination Group met regularly in 2011; meetings were also used to raise awareness of the CRPD. Participants included the MLSPP; Ministry of Health; State Enterprise Orthopedic Plant; National Research Institute for Rehabilitation of Disabled People; National Union and Society of Disabled People (NUDP); ICRC; Tajikistan Red Crescent Society (TjRCS); Handicap International (HI); Tajikistan Centre to Ban Landmines & Cluster Munitions (TCBL&CM); and mine/ERW survivors’ networks.[10]

Responsibility for the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities was shared by the Commission on Fulfillment of International Human Rights, the NUDP, and local and regional governmental structures.[11] Several members of the Coordination Group also had responsibility for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities in Tajikistan more generally.

Tajikistan’s victim assistance program, guided by the Cartagena Action Plan, aimed to ensure that all mine survivors have equal access to adequate gender- and age-appropriate victim assistance services as well as legal assistance. In this regard, the Tajikistan National Mine Action Strategic Plan 2010–2015 includes an objective for implementing victim assistance, ensuring the rights of survivors and advocating for Tajikistan to join the CRPD.[12]

In 2012, Tajikistan was in the process of developing of a new action plan to specifically address the remaining victim assistance challenges. Victim assistance workshops were held with participation of the key partner organizations; survivors were organized by TMAC and a HI consultant in order to develop a long-term action plan for landmine survivors and other persons with disabilities for 2012–2015. The first draft of a Plan of Action was prepared by May 2012 and comments on the draft were being incorporated.[13]

Near the end of 2011, a Coordination Council on the Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities was established by a governmental decree. The Coordination Council was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and includes relevant government ministries and agencies. Disabled persons’ organizations and TMAC are also members of the Council.[14]

Tajikistan provided detailed updated information on all aspects of victim assistance in reporting at the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties and the 2012 intersessional Standing Committee meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty.[15]

Survivor Inclusion and Participation

Tajikistan reported efforts to ensure the full inclusion and participation of survivors and their representative organizations in all victim assistance related activities, including coordination, management, and implementation of services. With the support of TMAC, two landmine survivors from Tajikistan participated in the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties, including a survivor on the official government delegation. TMAC ensured this participation by including the cost of survivor participation in project budgets. Survivors and their representative organizations participated in the inter-agency victim assistance coordination group meetings.[16]

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities[17]

In 2011, mine/ERW survivors received medical treatment and rehabilitation services through different hospitals run by the Ministry of Health as well as the National Research Institute for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities.[18]

The number of prostheses produced by the SEOP in Dushanbe, which is the only prosthetic center in Tajikistan, increased in 2011 compared to 2010. The MLSPP, with support from the European Commission Budgetary Support Programme, covered costs of the center in a timely manner and paid the expenses for transport and accommodation of patients attending the center from remote areas. However, for many people, especially for patients from remote regions in need of regular follow-up visits and renewal of devices, access to treatment remained difficult owing to the centralized provision of services. As in previous years, the SEOP had a long waiting list for prostheses.[19]

In early in 2011, the SEOP management slightly increased the salaries of the employees, thus preventing further loss of technical staff to better paying opportunities.[20] One technician returned to the center due to the pay restructuring; however, retaining staff remained a serious challenge for the center.[21] Though the SEOP obtained governmental financial resources for the purchase of supplies from abroad, ongoing negotiations for an import tax exemption on prosthetic and orthotic materials were unsuccessful in 2011. The ICRC Special Fund for the Disabled (SFD) continued to provide technical assistance and training to the SEOP.[22]

A 2011 a UNICEF report found that the referral process with the SEOP was inadequate and that there was a lack of coordination between different ministerial departments. Steps taken to address these challenges were reported to have improved orthotics services during the year.[23]

A lack of appropriate economic inclusion opportunities, psychological support, and peer-to-peer support remained a significant challenge.[24] In 2011 and 2012, TMAC/UNDP continued to work to address these challenges by assisting two newly established survivor-run NGOs, in Dushanbe and in Khujand (Sugd region) to promote peer support, capacity-building of survivors, income-generation opportunities and rights advocacy. This support included organizing English language lessons, proposal writing and computer training for NGO leaders as well as providing equipment, materials and capacity-building training that resulted in both NGOs starting their own project activities in 2012.[25] A third survivor network, which included representation from members of the two TMAC assisted networks and other NGOs, was coordinated by the Tajikistan Centre to Ban Landmine and Cluster Munitions.

Regional cooperation in psychological and peer support continued in 2011. A second Regional Psychosocial Rehabilitation Conference was organized in Dushanbe by the MLSPP in cooperation with TMAC and the UN Afghanistan Disability Support Programme in October 2011. Tajik survivor organization members also attended a one-week on peer support training by the Afghanistan Landmine Survivors Organization in Kabul, Afghanistan, in September 2011.[26]

Tajikistan’s 2010–2012 Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) contains provisions for improvements in areas relevant to mine survivors and other persons with disabilities, including the quality of healthcare services, the pension system, the quality of prosthetic and orthopedic devices, access to social institutions, training of prosthetic/orthotic technicians, and access to vocational training for vulnerable groups.[27] The December 2010 Law on Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities, which includes standards similar to those of the CRPD, [28] guarantees the physical accessibility of infrastructure for social life and to public transportation. Any planning, construction or reconstruction that does not follow the law is prohibited and penalties can be applied.[29] However, it was reported that the government did not enforce these provisions.[30] Gender disparity was persistent and women with disabilities had less access to basic health services and educational opportunities than men.[31] In 2011, HI ran a project focused on enforcing the rights of people with disabilities and supporting organizations of persons with disabilities.[32]  

Tajikistan had not signed the CRPD as of 1 June 2012.

Advocacy activities for the CRPD intensified in 2012, including training on advocacy strategies, rights of persons with disabilities in the framework of national disability legislation, and international conventions in May 2012 for NGOs representing survivors. Four advocacy round-table meetings were held in Khujand, Garm, Kurgan-Tube and Khorog, organized by the members of survivors’ NGOs. In addition, HI, in cooperation with TCBL&CM and TMAC, organized a regional round-table meeting in April 2012 in Dushanbe and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) organized two round-table meetings in Dushanbe in May.[33]