Tajikistan

Despite legislation designed to secure gender equality, women rarely make it beyond deputy positions in the Tajik government, and instead remain stuck in the lower ranks or hit a glass ceiling after reaching middle management.

Despite legislation designed to secure gender equality, women rarely make it beyond deputy positions in the Tajik government, and instead remain stuck in the lower ranks or hit a glass ceiling after reaching middle management.

Tajikistan has no female cabinet ministers, though the state committee for women and family affairs is headed by a woman.

Marifat Shokirova, who heads the committee’s gender department, argues that government efforts have resulted in improvements this year.

Tajikistan's Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), the only officially registered Islamic party in Central Asia, wants to boost its two-seat presence in the Tajik parliament in the next elections, scheduled for February 2010. To achieve that goal, the party is seeking to shrug off its old image of a conservative rural party, recruiting many women and young technocrats.
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Female representatives from all registered political parties in Tajikistan who took part in the Human Dimension Seminar held by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights on 18-20 May 2011 in Warsaw, issued a joint statement outlining a strategy for boosting women's participation in politics in their country.