Violence against children in Central Asia
Central Asia: Slaps, sticks and belts: Violence as a way of bringing up children and its effects
15.08.2025
Article published on the rus.azattyq.org website
“This is my child and I’ll raise it any way I like!” – this phrase, which is familiar to many, often serves as an excuse for violence. It hides cruel forms of child abuse that go way beyond any conceivable limits. In a recent case in Tajikistan that shocked the nation, a father, suspecting his son of theft, tortured him to death. The man tied the boy to a car and dragged him along the road.
In many Central Asian families, corporal punishment of children is considered to be the norm: slaps for poor school grades, beatings as a method of persuasion, or spanking for a child’s disobedience. Why is this practice still so widespread and what are its effects?
The incident that shook Tajikistan took place 60 kilometres from Dushanbe. A 40-year-old father, suspecting his 15-year-old son of stealing 600 somoni (around $60), took him to a deserted spot, tied a rope to his legs and dragged him behind the car, filming his actions on video. The boy later died of his injuries.
Last November, another video was circulated in Tajikistan, which showed a woman beating five small children who were lying on the floor with a stick. The children were crying and trying to fend off the blows with their hands. The footage captured a 54-year-old resident of Khatlon region’s Balkhi district who happened to be the grandmother of the children aged between three and seven. She was arrested and charged with child abuse.
Last October, in Khatlon region’s Khuroson district, a 35-year-old woman hit her ten-year-old son in the street in full view of passers-by. A video of the boy with a bloody nose spread across social networks. Public pressure led to action being taken against her.
According to figures from Tajikistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, 28,994 crimes against minors were officially recorded last year in a country of ten million people, 40% of whom are children and young people under 28 years of age. The figures were a third more than the previous year. Of these, 48 cases involved moderate to severe harm to health.
Last year, Tajikistan became the 67th country in the world and the second in Central Asia after Turkmenistan, where corporal punishment is now banned by law. A UNICEF representative in Tajikistan told Azattyk Asia on condition of anonymity that, according to the results of the latest medical and demographic study conducted by the National Statistics Agency in 2023, 56% of children under the age of 14 have been victims of domestic violence, while the number of parents who consider physical punishment of children to be acceptable had fallen from 15% to 4% in five years.
However, as UNICEF well knows, the scale of violence against children in Tajikistan is still greatly underestimated – in fact, one can still see parents slapping their children on the cheek or pulling their ears – supposedly for “educational purposes”.
In the spring, Uzbekistan followed Tajikistan’s lead with the enactment of a law “On Protecting Children from All Forms of Violence”, which explicitly prohibits parents from administering corporal punishment and other forms of abuse for educational purposes. The reason for its adoption was supporting data from a Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) carried out by UNICEF, which showed that 62% of children under 14 have suffered abuse as part of their upbringing.
According to UNICEF in 2023, 53% of Kazakh children experienced at least one form of psychological or physical punishment from adult family members. Amongst the youngest, 38% of children aged from one to two years were subjected to violence as part of their upbringing.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child then recommended that Kazakhstan take action to strengthen its child protection measures, including the introduction of a total ban on corporal punishment within the family, as well as in specialist institutions and pre-school bodies.
Kyrgyzstan has also announced its intention to ban corporal punishment of children. The 2023 MICS study showed that 65% of children have been subjected to harsh discipline in their families, while around 37% have suffered physical punishment.
“Parental illiteracy”
Last November, a video filmed in the Nooken district of Kyrgyzstan went viral on social media. The footage showed a man striking a little girl on the head with a thin stick, telling her not to cry, to put on a nappy and go to bed. The girl, sobbing in pain, did what she was told. It later emerged that the man in the video was her father.
Elzhas Yertayuly, Director of the Happy Family Counselling Centre in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and author of the book Parenting Without Punishment, says that physical abuse is often seen by parents as the quickest way of getting results.
“Many people think: why waste time explaining the difference between right and wrong when you only have to scream at or threaten a child and achieve the desired outcome quickly”, he says.
According to Yertayuly, aggression shown towards a child is a sign of an adult’s weakness, their emotional instability, an inability to cope with stress and parental illiteracy.
“It’s not about whether parents have higher education degrees. They can have a master’s and be a professional in their own field, but if they are ignorant about family values, of raising children or the damage done by certain types of behaviour, they are illiterate in a way that enables them to carry on punishing children without a second thought”.
Madina Sharapova, a psychologist from Dushanbe and associate psychology professor at Tajikistan’s National University, explains that domestic violence is often passed down through the generations: children who have suffered physical punishment repeat the same patterns of behaviour as parents. “This is not altogether surprising if the only thing they have experienced growing up is being shouted at and abused”, she says.
Children used as a “punch bag”
There has been another noticeable trend in Central Asia in recent years, with parents beating and humiliating their children in a very open way, recording their actions on video and sending it to their spouses or other family members as an act of revenge for some perceived “wrongdoing” or to get what they want.
In February this year, another video spread across social networks that showed a woman brutally beating a baby. According to reports, the incident took place in the Sariasia district of Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya region. The footage shows the mother repeatedly hitting the child in the face and trying to strangle him. She says she is doing this in retaliation against her husband and threatens to kill the baby.
Another case that caused widespread public outrage in Uzbekistan in 2023 involved a father who recorded himself torturing his two-year old child on video. In it, he kicked the sleeping child and in another strangled him with a rope. The incident took place in Tashkent region’s Yangiyul district. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the 30-year-old resident of the Guliston mahalla systematically beat the child to take revenge on his wife for family disagreements.
Gulchehra Rakhmanova, Director of the Legal Initiative Foundation in Tajikistan, which focuses on protecting children’s rights, has analysed cases in which minors in the country have been victims of violence, including deaths. She highlights the major role played by social factors, in particular poverty.
“A significant proportion of the country’s population live below the poverty line. Financial insecurity, a lack of food, housing and clothing create high levels of stress. Under such circumstances, aggression is often directed at the most vulnerable, i.e. the children”, says Rakhmanova.
Children of migrant workers are particularly at risk. Parents who go away in search of work frequently leave their children in the care of relatives who don’t always look after them properly or keep them safe. In some cases this has led to tragedy. In March last year in the Tashkent region, a woman viciously beat her six-year-old niece for not doing her homework. The girl died in hospital three days later.
“This is how the circle of violence ends”
While only the most egregious cases frequently make it into the public domain, the practice of corporal punishment remains widespread and entrenched across Central Asia, says Muazzaum Ibragimova, a child psychologist from Uzbekistan. She refers to the countless studies carried out by psychologists, education specialists and neuroscientists that clearly demonstrate that violence committed by parents causes enormous and sometimes irreparable damage to children.
Ibragimova says that such methods undermine a basic sense of trust and security, which is lost by a child because the pain being inflicted is by the very person who is supposed to protect them. This destroys child bonding and creates chronic stress.
“If such punishments are repeated, a child will suffer constant anxiety and fear, not only of adults but also of what might happen if they make a mistake”, she said.
Ibragimova explains that physical violence also affects a child’s self-esteem: a child ceases to distinguish between the act and the person. They do not think “I did something wrong”, but instead think “I’m bad”, which destroys their sense of identity. In addition, a child who is physically punished learns a destructive pattern of behaviour: “You can get what you want through coercion” and will in future either begin to have power over others themselves or look for someone who will dominate them. This is how the circle of violence ends, she explains.
Madina Sharapova says that the impact of violence can not only affect mental and intellectual development but also manifest itself physically. In the early stages, this can include speech impediments, stammering, bed-wetting, sleep problems and increased anxiety.
“Parents take their child to the doctor, have dozens of tests done and the result is “everything is normal” but the problem of psychological damage is deep-seated, says Sharapova.
The effect on adolescents can take the form of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, which can last for years, suicidal thoughts and self-harm.
“Low self-esteem, running away from home, criminal and anti-social behaviour – all these are potential after-effects of childhood abuse”, the expert added.
Collective responsibility
Tajikistan society continues to be divided following the death of the teenager at the hands of his father in Tursunzade. The man is currently in custody. According to Sukhaili Kodiri, Head of the Children’s Rights Protection Department in the Ombudsman’s Office, the father’s actions come under Article 110, Part 3 of Tajikistan’s Criminal Code (causing grievous bodily harm, resulting in death through negligence), the maximum penalty for which is fifteen years in prison. However, Kodiri says that this is an initial determination as additional details may come to light during the course of the investigation.
Kodiri says that Tajikistan’s legislation on banning corporal punishment and the protection of children’s rights are fully compliant with international standards and regulations.
“Penalties have been harsher and the regulatory framework stricter since the adoption of legislation on parental responsibility for the raising and education of children, as well as amendments to the law “On the Protection of Children’s Rights”, he noted.
According to Kodiri, the problem often lies in the fact that domestic violence remains hidden within the closed family environment.
“A child may be afraid to speak out, may trust their abusers and may love them. This is why collective responsibility is so important – i.e. that of the police, schools, society and the family itself. Unfortunately, society will often look away. The case of the boy in Dushanbe shows this was not a random tragedy, as local residents have said that the child had been abused over a long period of time. Neighbours and relatives probably knew about it but chose not to interfere. Any signs of bruises, injuries and anxiety displayed by a child must be taken as a warning sign”.
Gulchehra Rakhmanova said that society is used to regarding domestic violence as a private matter and that it is not for others to get involved, adding:
“Neighbours and relatives are afraid of conflict or consider physical punishment to be a normal occurrence. Schools and doctors are often not trained to recognise the signs of abuse and have no idea how to respond. Social services are poorly resourced, overstretched and frequently perform their duties in a perfunctory manner. Children’s Rights Commissions are ineffective due to a lack of funding, coordination and accountability. As a result, there is no rapid response system or protection of children at a local level”.
“We would like to get to the stage where a passer-by who witnesses violence will be able to approach a person and say “you’re harming yourself as well as the child”, said a UNICEF representative, who asked Azattyk Asia’s editorial board not to disclose their name or position.
“The most important thing is to change the way people think. When officials say “Well, my father used to beat me but I grew up to be a normal human being”, I reply “If you hadn’t been physically abused, you may well have gone on to be a Nobel Prize winner”, she said.
Nargiz Khamrabayeva
Azattyk Asia
