On June 26-27, 2023, an Additional OSCE Meeting on the Human Dimension was held in Vienna, Austria, which examined the role of civil society organizations in promoting and protecting tolerance and combating discrimination, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of their efforts and discussing the best ways to provide them with the space and support they need to do their work.
The Additional Meeting on the Human Dimension was attended by representatives of OSCE participating States, OSCE institutions and structures, international organizations, civil society, the media and other stakeholders with relevant experience in this topic.
On June 27, a website event was organized on the sidelines of this Meeting of the PA “Social Technologies Agency ”, where the experience of Kyrgyzstan in organizing interfaith dialogues on gender-sensitive aspects was presented. The presentation was made by Kochorbayeva Zulfiya, Director of the Social Technologies Agency .
The Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic guarantees that “everyone has the right to receive preschool, basic general, secondary general and primary vocational education free of charge in State educational organizations.” However, in Kyrgyzstan, the problem of restricting girls’ access to education on the basis of their parents’ religious beliefs remains urgent, and despite the prohibition at the legislative level and criminalization of this act, the problem of early marriages is acute in Kyrgyzstan, because of which some girls do not finish school.
In order to draw attention to this problem in 2022, the PA “Social Technologies Agency ” in partnership with government agencies organized public dialogues in 7 regions and an information campaign in 38 schools of Kyrgyzstan.
In 2023, in the period from May 10 to June 23, Public dialogues on the protection of girls’ rights to education and from early marriage were held in 14 districts in all 7 regions of the country (at least 2 districts in each region) with the participation of more than 500 people, representatives of state bodies, religious figures, representatives of various faiths, educational organizations, local self-government bodies, social development bodies, local state administration, public organizations and activists involved in the protection of children’s rights, gender equality, protection from violence and discrimination.
The participants of the dialogues recognized the need for active joint work to prevent early marriages and dropout of girls from schools, including explanatory work in religious communities, issues of mutual information, algorithms for joint actions, as well as intersectoral cooperation were discussed.
The public dialogues were organized by the PA “Social Technologies Agency ” within the framework of the project “Assistance in Promoting Interfaith Dialogue and Tolerance” of the OSCE Program Office in Bishkek, in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, Social Security and Migration of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic, the State Commission for Religious Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic, local state administrations and the Local authorities.