1. NORTH AND CENTRAL
ASIA
It is also sometimes referred to as Middle Asia, Bernice Caña
And, colloquially, “the „stans‟” (as the 5 countries
Generally considered to be within the regions Charles Chua
all have names ending with that suffix) and is
Within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent. Madge Cometa
GROUP 8 –
1BES2
2. Country Capital
Afghanistan Kabul
Kazakhstan Astana
Kyrgyzstan Bishkek
Tajikistan Dushanbe
Turkmenistan Ashgabat
Uzbekistan Tashkent
3. RELATIVE LOCATION
North: Russia
East: Mongolia and China
South: Pakistan and Iran
West: Caspian Sea and some portion of
Russia
13. GOVERNMENT
Republic
-a form of government in which the people‟s elected representatives,
and not the people themselves, vote on legislation.
*Afghanistan (Islamic Republic) *Kyrgyzstan *Tajikistan
Authoritarian
-a form of government in which state authority is imposed onto many
aspects of citizens‟ lives. The following countries implement both a
republic and authoritarian form of government, in which the control lies
mainly in the executive branch and there is very little power outside of it.
*Kazakhstan *Uzbekistan
Democracy
-a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the
people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of
representation and delegated authority periodically
renewed. Turkmenistan defines itself as a secular democracy and a
presidential republic; however, in reality it practices authoritarian
presidential rule, with power concentrated within the presidential
administration.
14. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai
Kazakhstan President Nursultan A. Nazbayev
(Chief of State)
Prime Minister Karim Mazimov
(Head of Government)
Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambaev
(Chief of State)
Prime Minister Ormubek Babanov
(Head of Government)
Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon
(Chief of State)
Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov
(Head of Government)
Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow
Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov
(Chief of State)
Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev
15. Economy
COUNTRY IMPORTS EXPORTS CURRENCY
Afghanistan machinery and other capital opium, fruits and nuts, afghanis
goods, food, textiles, handwoven carpets, wool,
petroleum products cotton, hides and pelts,
precious and semi-precious
gems
Kazakhstan machinery and oil and oil products, ferrous tenge
equipment, metal metals, chemicals, machinery,
grain, wool, meat, coal
products, foodstuffs
Kyrgyzstan oil and gas, machinery and cotton, wool, meat, tobacco; soms
equipment, chemicals, gold, mercury, uranium, natural
foodstuffs gas, hydropower; machinery;
shoes
Tajikistan petroleum products, aluminum, electricity, cotton, Tajikistani
aluminum oxide, machinery fruits, vegetable oil, textiles somoni
and equipment, foodstuffs
Turkmenistan machinery and equipment, gas, crude oil, petrochemicals, Turkmen manat
chemicals, foodstuffs textiles, cotton fiber
Uzbekistan machinery and equipment, energy products, cotton, gold, Uzbekistani
foodstuffs, chemicals, mineral fertilizers, ferrous and soum
ferrous and nonferrous nonferrous metals, textiles,
metals food products, machinery,
automobiles
16. CURRENT EVENTS
On her final full day in office, President Roza
Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan became the first senior Kyrgyz
official to forcefully denounce "bride kidnapping," an entrenched
custom in her Central Asian state.
"Bride kidnapping is a tradition of the Kyrgyz people," she
acknowledged as she was preparing to leave the presidential
palace on Nov. 29. "But these crimes often force women to
commit suicide."
Young men kidnap about 15,000 girls each year, Otunbayeva
said. They simply grab a girl walking down the street, stuff her
in the car, kicking and screaming, and take her home. He may
rape her -- or not. Either way, after she's locked up overnight in
an unrelated man's house, the girl is unfit to wed anyone else.
Her family won't permit her to come home. So she's forced to
marry her kidnapper.
17. No one keeps precise statistics, but estimates suggest that
half of Kyrgyz wives are married in this way. The outgoing
president urged her people to stop romanticizing bride
kidnapping and inaugurated a month-long campaign to fight
the practice. But then the new president, Almazbek
Atambayev, had nothing to say about this as he took office --
though admittedly he was preoccupied. The next day his ruling
coalition collapsed.
Around the world, numerous nations cling to longstanding
traditions that, to Western eyes, seem barbarous -- or worse.
Most of them victimize girls.
In Northwestern Thailand, I interviewed a woman, one of
many, preparing to sell her 12-year-old daughter to traffickers
who would force her into prostitution. The mother intended to
use the trafficker's payment for her daughter to buy a new
refrigerator. "It's our tradition," she explained.
18. In Saudi Arabia, centuries-old religious convention allows middle-
aged men to marry prepubescent girls -- some as young as 7 or 8
years old.
Pakistani officials use gang rape as a government-sanctioned
punishment.
In Cameroon "breast ironing" remains an honored custom. After
their daughters reach puberty, mothers heat a flat rock in the fire
and then press it forcefully onto each of her daughter's breasts --
burning away breast tissue, leaving them flat-chested so
avaricious young men will leave them alone.
"Breast ironing has existed as long as Cameroon has existed,"
gynecologist Sinou Tchana told the Inter Press news service.
Women "told us that it was normal for them."
If it's "normal for them," how should Western societies regard
practices like these? Anthropology's "cultural relativism" rule
suggests that we should not judge other countries by the
standards of our own society.
19. But some acts are just too vile, and cultural courtesies don't stop
human-rights groups from wagging their fingers at these states.
"Kyrgyzstan's government is allowing domestic violence and the
abduction of women for forced marriage to continue with
impunity," Human Rights Watchdeclared. "Many Kyrgyz officials
portray bride kidnapping as a harmless ritual, a voluntary practice."
But Kyrgyzstan "must prosecute perpetrators of domestic violence and
kidnapping to the fullest extent of the law.“
Human Rights Watch issued that report in 2006. It did no good. In the
following years, Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights, lectured the government about bride kidnapping.
So did the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women. The U.N. Human Rights Council's special rapporteur
for Kyrgyzstan reprimanded the nation's leaders, and a representative
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europedeclared
the practice "a violation of women's rights."
20. Their admonitions accomplished little if anything. Now, however,
awareness is finally rising among the Kyrgyz themselves, and
change may be coming -- as the president's parting statement
suggested. Last spring, 200 people staged a small rally in Bishkek,
the capital, protesting on behalf of two kidnapped girls who
committed suicide rather than succumb to marriage. That was a
first.
Then, late last month, the Association of Crisis
Centers in Kyrgyzstan announced that it is staging "awareness
campaigns in 13 villages to inform villagers that bride kidnapping is
a crime."
As barbaric as we may view bride kidnapping, breast ironing and
other hideous practices, most often human-rights lectures have
little actual effect. Change must come from within.
It's no coincidence that most places preying mercilessly on their
young are desperately poor. Kyrgyzstan's average annual income
is $870; in Cameroon it's$1,170. And Kyrgyzstan's Red Crescent
Society seems to realize that economic development is the only
