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	Tajikistan: Drop draft legislation restricting NGO access to funding by Civic Solidarity, Helsinki Committee, agencies   24 December 2014   ‘No sign of improvement’ for human rights in Belarus, warns Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, Miklos Haraszti.   Amid the continuing application of death sentences, the harassment of human rights defenders and independent journalists, and a new censorship law clamping down on internet freedom, the Government of Belarus shows no imminent sign of bettering its human rights record, a United Nations expert has declared.   “In 2014, the Belarus Government made welcome efforts to ease the tensions and human rights crisis which evolved in the region,” the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Republic of Belarus, Miklos Haraszti, said today in a press release.   “However,” he added, “despite the expectations of the international community, expressed both bilaterally and multilaterally, the internal human rights situation in Belarus shows no signs of improvement.”   In a five-point media statement summing up the human rights situation and delineating the ongoing abuses still faced by many in Belarus, Mr. Haraszti, an independent expert who serves in his individual capacity, noted that rights to peaceful assembly and association remained “severely restricted” by the authorities who continued to prosecute rights defenders.   “Crackdowns and disbanding of demonstrations resulted in an increased number of arbitrary detentions and so-called preventive arrests of civil society actors,” the UN expert explained.   One activist, Pavel Vinogradov, was arrested fifteen times over the course of the year, Mr. Haraszti continued. Meanwhile, the case of another activist, Elena Tonkacheva, demonstrated “the pervasive harassment of human rights defenders” across the country.   Ms. Tonkacheva, a citizen of the Russian Federation, has been residing in Belarus since 1985 from where she runs the Centre for Legal Transformation, also known as LawTrend, a civil society organization providing reports on the human rights situation in the country to independent media and UN human rights mechanisms, said the expert.   On 30 October, the Government cancelled her residence permit and subsequently issued a deportation order against her – an administrative decision based on an alleged infraction of speeding while driving. Ms. Tonkacheva has since lodged an appeal against what Mr. Haraszti has described as the “clearly disproportionate measure” taken by the Government.   “Unfortunately, Ms. Tonkacheva’s case is typical of the authorities’ recourse to fabricated charges to silence human rights defenders and the fragile independent media in Belarus,” the UN expert said. “I now urge Belarusian authorities to immediately stop all administrative procedures and to reinstate her rights.”   Against that backdrop, Mr. Haraszti warned that the country had entered a “radically new phase of oppression” of free speech following the Government’s imposition of an internet clampdown. Since 19 December, Belarusian authorities have been blocking the country’s main independent websites Ñharter97.org, Belapan.by, Naviny.by, BelarusPartisan.org, as well as several others, the expert noted.   The new directive “practically puts all forms of internet-based communications under direct governmental censorship and jurisdiction,” he continued. “The new regulation places responsibility on the online resources for any material or comment considered to be ‘harmful to the interests of the state;’ and it authorizes government instances to issue warnings over content at their will.”   http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49682#.VJzFZcCA   25.11.2014   Tajikistan: Drop draft legislation restricting NGO access to funding.   Almost a hundred civil society groups called on the government of Tajikistan to drop new restrictive draft legislation on NGOs and to respect the right of NGOs to have unhindered access to funding for their work.   We, the undersigned civil society organizations, are alarmed at the recent initiative by the government of Tajikistan to regulate and restrict access of NGOs to financial assistance. Draft legislation to this end, which is currently under consideration by the government, runs counter to international standards protecting the right to freedom of association and risks endangering the work of NGOs in the country. We call on the government of Tajikistan to drop this draft legislation and to respect the right of NGOs to have unhindered access to funding for their work, including from sources abroad.   According to draft amendments to the Law on Public Associations prepared by the Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan, all grants and donations received by NGOs from foreign and international sources would be subject to inclusion in a state register of humanitarian assistance. The implementation of programs funded by foreign governments, international organizations and other sources abroad would only be allowed after the registration process has been completed.   The registration requirement would apply to all funds originating from these sources, irrespective of size. In addition, the draft amendments require the registration of funds received “through other physical and legal entities,” an ambiguous provision that leaves it unclear whether funds received from local sources also would be subject to inclusion in the same register.   After a non-transparent drafting process, in which civil society has not been involved, the draft amendments are now being reviewed by other government agencies. It is expected that the draft law will be submitted to the parliament in the near future.   This draft legislation in Tajikistan forms part of a broader trend in many countries in the former Soviet Union, in which governments are stepping up efforts to control and restrict access, in particular, to foreign funding of NGOs.   The arguments used to justify such legislation are typically that it is necessary to enhance the accountability and transparency of NGOs that receive foreign assistance, who are also often the targets of unfounded accusations that they serve the “political interests” of foreign donors.   While NGOs are accountable to the public and should provide information about their activities and sources of funding, any procedures aimed at ensuring the transparency of NGO financing must be necessary and reasonable and must not impede the ability of organizations to obtain and use funding for their work either from domestic or foreign sources.   We are concerned that the proposed registration requirement for NGO funding in Tajikistan would place an additional bureaucratic burden on NGOs, which are already required to account in detail for their activities and the sources and amounts of their funding (including that from foreign and international sources) by submitting regular reports to the Ministry of Justice and the tax authorities. The proposed registration requirement would also only apply to NGOs, not other entities that receive financial assistance.   Moreover, we are concerned that the proposed provisions would unduly restrict access to funding of NGOs. The draft amendments do not elaborate on how the procedure for registering grants with the government would be implemented or what sanctions non-compliance would entail.   However, there are reasons to fear that it in practice would amount to a system of pre-authorization for the use of funds that would involve direct government interference in the activities of NGOs and could result in arbitrary delays and denials to register grants.   As a result, it could jeopardize not only the implementation of NGO projects aimed at, for example, counteracting torture, fighting corruption, promoting environmental protection or assisting members of vulnerable groups, but also the continued existence of NGOs dependent on unobstructed access to funding.   Across the former Soviet Union, measures to increase government control over the financing of NGOs have been taken in the context of an increasingly restrictive climate for NGOs. In Tajikistan, the draft legislation on NGO funding is being put forward at a precarious time for civil society organizations in this country. The Ministry of Justice, the tax authorities and other state institutions have wide powers to monitor and oversee NGO activities.   In the recent period, inspections of NGOs have increasingly been carried out on an unscheduled basis and been followed by warnings and – in some cases -- lawsuits to suspend and close down organizations for alleged violations of the law, including the failure to comply with requirements of a technical nature.   If adopted, the draft legislation would further worsen the climate for NGOs and is also likely to contribute to public mistrust and suspicion of NGOs by singling them out for the proposed registration regime.   http://civicsolidarity.org/article/1048/tajikistan-drop-draft-legislation-restricting-ngo-access-funding http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/tajik-assassination/6326892 http://www.opendemocracy.net/open-security/edin-omanovic/behind-rise-of-private-surveillance-industry-in-central-asia   Economic dystopia in Kyrgyzstan, by Dr Balihar Sanghera, Director of Studies for Social Sciences at the University of Kent.   Despite being hailed as a success story for liberal market reforms, Kyrgyzstan in fact provides an example of how the rentier class have become an integral part of the economy, and how democracy has given way to plutocracy. Sometimes with the assistance of the international donor and financial community, rentiers have shaped public policy in key industries, such as microfinance, real estate and utilities, allowing them to siphon off income from consumption and production.   A rentier lives off the income from investment, property, capital and other assets in the form of interests, rent and capital gains. Rentiers can write the rules of the game as to who gets what and when, as a result of owning and/or controlling assets and occupying positions of legal authority. In contrast, the rest of the population have to do other work, such as farming, cooking, nursing, building and teaching. Inequality is the inevitable result.   The effects have been damaging: sharpening social divisions, corrupting public service, impoverishing rural communities, indebting working families, forcing ordinary people to live in squalid conditions, contributing towards an intensely individualistic and competitive economic life, and causing leakages to the national income flows..   Politicians can be entrepreneurial in developing, privatising, taking-over or negotiating with rent-extracting enterprises, many of which are natural and artificial quasi-monopolies, such as utilities, mining, mobile communication, transport, supermarkets and hotel resorts. Because of their economic and geographical dominance in the market, these companies can charge what are known as ''''economic rents'''', which are the inflated margins over actual production costs. Economic rents create prices empty of cost-value, siphoning off for rights-holders, income that otherwise would be spent on goods and services in the real economy.   To counter the anti-progressive economic system in Kyrgyzstan, public policy discussion requires a re-familiarisation with terms such as ‘rentier’, ‘unearned income’ and ‘economic rent’, which disappeared from public discourse.   In addition, a public policy response to rent extraction must include a progressive taxation of wealth, the nationalisation of quasi-monopolies, anti-monopoly regulation to ensure fair competition and pricing, and participatory democracy to break the current property-politics nexus in the country.   http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/balihar-sanghera/economic-dystopia-in-kyrgyzstan
	Human Trafficking: Trapped, Exploited, Abused by Human Rights Watch   November 23, 2014   Gulf Countries: Increase Migrant Worker Protection.   Labor ministers from Gulf and Asian countries meeting on November 26 and 27, 2014, should improve labor law protection, reform abusive immigration policies, and increase dialogue with trade unions and nongovernmental groups, 90 human rights organizations and unions said today.   Millions of contract workers from Asia and Africa, including an estimated 2.4 million domestic workers in the Gulf, are subject to a wide range of abuses, including unpaid wages, confiscation of passports, physical abuse, and forced labor.   “Whether it’s the scale of abuse of domestic workers hidden from public view or the shocking death toll among construction workers, the plight of migrants in the Gulf demands urgent and profound reform,” said Rothna Begum, Middle East women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This should include a thorough overhaul of the abusive kafala visa sponsorship system.”   The ministers will meet in the third round of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, an inter-regional forum on labor migration between Asian countries of origin and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of destination. Nongovernmental groups participated in the first two rounds but were not invited to this year’s gathering.   Labor ministers from the GCC states are to meet separately on November 23 to discuss a draft domestic workers contract and the proposed formation of a cross-GCC body to oversee migrant domestic work.   The kafala system, used to varying extents across the Gulf, restricts most workers from moving to a new job before their contracts end unless they obtain their employer’s consent, trapping many workers in abusive situations. Many migrant workers feel intense financial pressure not only to support their families at home but also to pay off huge debts incurred during recruitment.   Poorly monitored labor recruitment agencies, in both the migrants’ countries of origin and in the destination Gulf states, often overcharge migrant workers, deceive them about their working conditions, or fail to assist them if they encounter workplace abuse.   In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, migrant workers cannot leave the country without obtaining their employer’s consent for an “exit permit” from the authorities.   Some employers have refused to pay wages, return passports, or provide permission for “exit permits” in order to exact work from workers involuntarily.   A November analysis by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), “Facilitating Exploitation,” highlighted how gaps in national labor laws in GCC countries either partially or completely exclude domestic workers.   An October Human Rights Watch report, “I Already Bought You,” and an April Amnesty International report, “My Sleep is My Break,” found common patterns of abuse against domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar respectively, including unpaid wages, no rest periods, excessive workloads, food deprivation, and confinement in the workplace.   In several cases, domestic workers reported physical or sexual abuse and had been in situations of forced labor, including trafficking.   “The proposals made by GCC countries fall far short of the changes needed to protect domestic workers’ rights, safety, and dignity,” said Elizabeth Tang, general secretary of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF).   “GCC countries should join the growing number of countries worldwide that are extending full protection of their labor laws to domestic workers, including a minimum wage, a weekly rest day, the right to organize, and social benefits.”   http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/23/gulf-countries-increase-migrant-worker-protection   November 2014   Human Trafficking: Trapped, Exploited, Abused, by Janet Walsh.   Sex trafficking gets a lot of attention, as it should. It’s a horrific crime. But trafficking in forced labor is also a grave abuse that has even more victims.   In 2012, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that worldwide there were 14.2 million victims of forced labor compared with 4.5 million victims of forced sexual exploitation. Migrant domestic workers, for example, are at high risk of being trafficked into forced labor, but their stories rarely make the headlines.   Some governments have a blind spot when it comes to trafficking into forced labor. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one example.   The UAE considers forced labor a crime, but its anti-trafficking efforts, including shelters and public awareness campaigns, focus far more on sex trafficking than on trafficking into forced labor. In fact, the country’s main agency dealing with trafficking said in its 2013-14 that “the UAE — with expatriates making up about 85 percent of its population — believes that labor issues should not be linked to human trafficking, and should be treated separately.”   With an estimated 7.3 million migrant workers in the country, the UAE should have immigration policies and labor laws that protect foreign workers’ rights and reduce the risk of trafficking. Instead, they have a visa sponsorship system that fosters conditions for trafficking into forced labor. And while the labor law covers some migrant workers, it explicitly excludes domestic workers.   The UAE’s visa sponsorship system, known as kafala, ties domestic workers to individual employers. They can’t move to a new job before the end of their contract without the employer’s consent. This system — together with deceptive recruitment practices, the common employer practice of confiscating workers’ passports and exploitative working conditions — create a “perfect storm” for trafficking.   My colleague and I interviewed 99 domestic workers in the UAE, including some who were trafficked, for a new Human Rights Watch report. The women reported a range of abuses. Recruiters made false promises. Employers often didn’t pay the women’s wages on time, and some didn’t pay at all. Many employers confiscated the women’s passports and confined them to the households where they worked. The women worked long hours with no rest, and some were deprived of food. Some employers inflicted psychological and physical abuse — including sexual abuse.   One example is Mabel (whose name is changed for her protection), who left an office job in the Philippines for what she believed would be more lucrative work in the United Arab Emirates. A labor recruitment agent in the Philippines duped Mabel with the promise of an office job in Dubai with good pay.   But when she arrived in the UAE, there was no office job. Instead, the agent in the UAE made her work as a nanny and housecleaner for a family with three children. Mabel said her employers took her passport and locked her in their home. She worked up to 20 hours each day with no rest periods, or even one day off, for 10 months. Her employers delayed paying her wages for three months at a time. After they started beating her, she pretended to take out the garbage one day and then ran.   At the same time as the UAE is falling short on addressing trafficking and forced labor concerns at home, it is getting more involved at the global level. In 2014, the country was elected to the International Labor Organization’s Governing Body, and is a donor to a UN anti-trafficking initiative.   If the UAE wants to be a major player on labor and trafficking at the global level, it needs to put its own house in order. It can start by ratifying key global treaties, including the 2014 protocol to the ILO forced labor convention of 1930, and the 2011 ILO Convention on Domestic Workers.   The UAE should reform its laws by doing away with its visa sponsorship system and adopting a law on domestic workers rights. It should expand its anti-trafficking programs beyond sex trafficking.   It is time to assist all victims of trafficking, not just those whose stories make the headlines. Visit the related web page
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