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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
Like its 1993 predecessor, the constitution of 1995 defends women's
rights implicitly, if not entirely explicitly. The document guarantees
citizens the right to work and forbids discrimination based on geographic
origin, gender, race, nationality, religious or political belief, and
language.
In practice, social opinion tends to associate women in the workplace
with the abuses of the Soviet past. The early 1990s saw the loss of more
than 100,000 day-care spaces, and public opinion strongly favors returning
primary responsibility for the rearing and educating of children to
mothers. In April 1995, President Nazarbayev said that one of the
republic's goals must be to create an economy in which a mother can work
at home, raising her children. This general opinion has been reflected in
governmental appointments and private enterprise; almost no women occupy
senior positions in the country, either in government or in business.
The declining birth rate is another issue with the potential to become
politicized because it affects the demographic "race" between
Kazaks and Russians. With demographic statistics in mind, Kazak
nationalist parties have attempted to ban abortions and birth control for
Kazak women; they have also made efforts to reduce the number of Kazak
women who have children outside marriage. In 1988, the last year for which
there are figures, 11.24 percent of the births in the republic were to
unmarried women. Such births were slightly more common in cities (12.72
percent) than in rural areas (9.67 percent), suggesting that such births
may be more common among Russians than among Kazaks.
Women's health issues have not been addressed effectively in Kazakstan.
Maternal mortality rates average 80 per 10,000 births for the entire
country, but they are believed to be much higher in rural areas. Of the
4.2 million women of childbearing age, an estimated 15 percent have borne
seven or more children. Nevertheless, in 1992 the number of abortions
exceeded the number of births, although the high percentage of early-stage
abortions performed in private clinics complicates data gathering.
According to one expert estimate, the average per woman is five abortions.
Rising abortion rates are attributable, at least in part, to the high
price or unavailability of contraceptive devices, which became much less
accessible after 1991. In 1992 an estimated 15 percent of women were using
some form of contraception.
Data as of March 1996
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