In Kazakhstan, the Solidarity Center supports the right of workers to safe, decent working conditions and monitors violations of core labor standards. Credit: Kazinform
In Kazakhstan, the Solidarity Center supports the right of workers to unionize in the face of harsh government opposition to unions, and monitors working conditions and violations of core labor standards to help support workers seeking to exercise their rights.
Since 2016, government repression has forced all independent unions to close, resulted in legal charges against half a dozen union leaders and threatened the physical security of activists and their families. At the workplace, hundreds of Kazakh workers are injured on the job and scores killed each year, yet workers who strike to improve working conditions can be fired, fined and jailed if courts declare their strikes illegal.
Aldaberdi Karimov, 42, who lives in a remote Kyrgyzstan village in the Batken region, did not want to migrate from his country to find work to support his family, including his daughter, Ak Maral, now 5 years old. But like many in Kyrgyzstan, where remittances from...
Workers who migrate from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan for jobs often do not receive their wages, are forced to work in unsafe and abusive conditions and even are kidnapped and held against their will in forced labor, according to a new report. “Invisible and Exploited in...