Since the beginning of the year, at least two young mothers in rural Tajikistan have taken their own lives by drowning themselves.

In a third case, 27-year-old Madina Halimova from the country’s far south allegedly drowned her four children in the Vakhsh River in late June, then attempted to drown herself. Her husband says she snuck out of the house while he slept. Authorities pulled Halimova from the river, saving her life. But she now faces murder charges stemming from the deaths of her children.

Halimova’s husband and his family have said she suffered from untreated mental health issues, while her lawyer has stated she believed her husband was cheating on her, the Tajik media outlet Asia-Plus reported.

Halimova’s case has garnered widespread attention in Tajikistan, Central Asia’s poorest state with a predominantly Muslim population of about 11mn, once again placing a spotlight on women’s rights and their place in society. 

“These cases have had a very big resonance,” Marhabo Olimi, a Tajik expert on gender issues, told Eurasianet. “Women’s low awareness of their rights and their economic dependence very often mean that women don’t have a way out, or don’t see a way out, and they simply take their lives.”

Women also take their children’s lives because they fear their children will suffer as they have, Olimi added.

Tajikistan has a relatively low suicide rate compared to other countries, but about once a year over the past decade a particularly dramatic, and often similar, story of a young mother taking her own life and those of her children generates headlines, according to Radio Ozodi, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tajik service.

The suicides underline that, despite many advances in recent years, women in Central Asia continue to face high rates of domestic violence, unequal treatment and misogyny.

The 2024 trial and conviction of former Kazakh Economy Minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev for his brutal treatment and murder of his wife Saltanat Nukenova brought international attention to the issue, prompting calls for reform by regional officials.

Yet, how much change has occurred remains an open question.

The problem of suicide is not isolated to Tajikistan. In December 2023, Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz service, reported on a wave of suicides by 10 women in one village in Kyrgyzstan’s rural Batken province.

Elsewhere in the region, cases of domestic violence in Uzbekistan more than doubled to 48,303 during the first half of this year, per figures from the country’s Committee for Family and Women and reported on August 14 by Current Time TV, an RFE/RL affiliate.

Activists suggest that just about the only change in existing patterns is the preferred method of suicide, from self-immolation to jumping off bridges.

The problem of suicides among young women in Tajikistan stretches back decades. In 1985, authorities in the then-Soviet republic of Tajikistan set up a committee to study the issue in response to a series of self-immolations.

During the first half of this year, 102 women and girls took their lives in Tajikistan, Bunafsha Fayziddinzoda, the head of the country’s Committee on Women and Family Affairs, told reporters earlier this month. That is a touch lower than the number over the same period of last year, but instances of suicide among minors increased, according to Fayziddinzoda.

About 90% of suicides in Tajikistan involve women, according to the Republican Center for Clinical Psychology cited by the Cabar news agency in 2021. Untreated mental health issues, poverty, domestic violence and child marriage are often contributing factors, Nargis Saidova, the director of the Tajik NGO Gender and Development, told Eurasianet in an interview.

Women lack access to qualified psychologists in rural areas, Saidova said. The problem is especially acute for young mothers as post-partum depression is poorly understood and rarely addressed, she added.

About 50% of women in Tajikistan reportedly suffer from domestic violence, which is overlooked and not criminalised in Tajikistan, Eurasianet has reported. Roughly 14% of girls under 18 are married either informally through a religious ceremony or legally via exceptions to the country’s ban on child marriage, which judges reportedly grant liberally, according to a 2024 report by the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Conflicts between women and their mothers-in-law are frequently invoked in the Tajik media when discussing suicides. Due to the high rate of labour migration among Tajik men, their wives often live with their husband’s family for years. Relations with relatives do sometimes play a role in suicides, but the underlying issue is the deeply rooted gender stereotypes of women’s role in society, Saidova said. 

The government has conducted several effective mental health campaigns, but what is needed more is stricter enforcement of laws against child marriage and domestic violence, Saidova said. Mental health centres and women’s shelters are also needed, she added.

Closing gaps has become more difficult in recent months since the Trump administration shuttered the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US State Department slashed international assistance, Saidova added. Her NGO lost a grant and another NGO closed in the wake of the cuts. But she is not giving up.

“We can’t throw our hands up,” she said.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.

Alexander Thompson is a journalist based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, reporting on current events across Central Asia. He previously worked for American newspapers, including the Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier and The Boston Globe.