The ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) in Tajikistan, with funding from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, has launched a two-year program to promote gender equality. The program, which supports the initiation of strategic litigation cases in local courts as well as international tribunals, will boost ongoing efforts that include the passage of gender-equality legislation. Existing legislation, whose enforcement is hampered by gender stereotypes and strong patriarchal views and practices, has so far made little difference in promoting women’s rights.

ABA ROLI is working with two local non-governmental organizations, INIS and the League of Women Lawyers, who have hired three local lawyers to implement the program. The program will inform and educate rural women about their rights and challenge stereotypes and biases against women. It will provide women access to justice through roving legal clinics. It will also select and litigate six cases that will help bring attention to women’s rights and run a concurrent awareness-raising media campaign.

Quarterly, program lawyers will travel to three remote districts—Faizabad, Khovaling and Muminobad—and, through visiting four-day pro bono legal clinics, will inform citizens of their legal rights while training local attorneys in both substantive areas of the law and in trial techniques. Legal advice will address topics of interest to women including marriage, divorce, domestic violence, inheritance, employment discrimination and bureaucratic obstacles to travel. Cases appropriate for strategic litigation will eventually be identified and pursued to implement good laws and challenge bad ones.

Additionally, ABA ROLI has retained the Theatre Padida, a well-known Tajik troupe, to produce and perform a theatrical production that addresses issues of gender equality. Theatre is a powerful medium in Tajikistan, especially in areas with limited access to television, radio or print media. The performances, which will occur simultaneously with thelegal clinics, will thus supplement the program targeting rural regions.

Through its Criminal Law Reform Program, the ABA equips accomplished defense attorneys to pass on their advocacy skills to their peers.

With funding from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice, the ABA launched a criminal law reform program in Tajikistan in 2006. A criminal law reform legal specialist, supported by resident staff, spearheads programs aimed at improving the advocacy skills of defense lawyers, promoting changes in criminal procedure, and assisting the government of Tajikistan in combating trafficking in persons.

In November 2006, the ABA facilitated a Training of Trainers course for defense advocates geared at combining substantive principles with interactive teaching methodology, including illustrative case studies for participants to use in subsequent trainings that they will lead for their peers. The training-of-trainers event was followed by an advocacy skills training for defense advocates in January 2007. The training explored various aspects of trial advocacy, including witness preparation, international standards in criminal practice, and various aspects of the judicial process.

To further criminal procedure reform, the ABA has organized a Criminal Defense Advocacy Group (CDAG) consisting mainly of defense advocates with oversight from the ABA staff. The group will primarily focus on conducting trial skills and other substantive trainings for criminal advocates, generating a draft ethics code for advocates and effectively implementing such a code, as well as on supporting general efforts toward advancing criminal procedure reform. Through the CDAG, and in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, the ABA hosted a roundtable on the Tajik Constitution in November 2006. The roundtable explored needed improvements to, and concerns regarding, the Constitution, focusing on those relating to criminal procedure and rights afforded under the Constitution.

In December 2006, the ABA organized seminars for practicing lawyers in Khujand to discuss the problem of human trafficking. The topics of the seminars included: the concept and elements of trafficking in both national legislation and international documents; characteristics of trafficking and the distinction between human trafficking and migration; protection of the rights of victims of trafficking; global reasons for trafficking; analysis of relevant sections of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan; the National Action Plan on Counteraction of Trafficking 2006-2010; and international documents in the field of human trafficking and transnational crime.

The ABA's Legal Education Reform activities in Tajikistan focus on two broad areas: educating local government officials about the law, and providing basic law and civics education through a Street Law-like model to students in secular and religious settings.  

Through its local governance legal education work in Tajikistan, the ABA seeks to ensure that officials in various local government bodies are equipped with knowledge of national laws and the available enforcement mechanisms of these laws to more effectively address citizen needs.

The ABA, in conjunction with the Legal Department of the Sughd Region Body of Executive Authority in the Khujand region of Tajikistan, entered into a MOU in January 2007 to formalize a series of trainings for over 300 local government officials of the Sughd Region Body. The cycle of trainings began in April of 2007 and focuses on the legal status of the local bodies and their responsibilities, as well as on substantive issues of importance to their respective constituencies such as ethics and corruption, the law governing citizen appeals and issues relating to labor, family, housing and land legislation.

In a parallel program in Dushanbe, the ABA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the civil service training institute.  The ABA also began conducting training for Dushanbe-based local government officials in April 2007.

Through the second component of its legal education program in Tajikistan, the ABA is striving to launch an expanded civic education program that will provide course offerings on legal principles to students in religious and secular settings.

In April 2007 the ABA launched an initial cycle of trainings for professors at the Islamic University in Dushanbe with the goal of equipping them to provide basic law and civics instruction to their pupils and to explain effectively and accurately the interplay of religion and the law in Tajikistan.

The ABA has also expanded its previous "My Civic Standing" program to offer a more comprehensive legal education curriculum to students in discussion clubs in Khujand and Dushanbe. The first training cycle in Khujand, held in January 2007, encompassed constitutional rights and human rights, available protection mechanisms. Similarly, in Dushanbe students from secondary schools and universities have been recruited for courses launched in February 2007 that emphasize issues relating to human rights, elections, mass media, human trafficking and corruption. Interactive teaching methodologies such as mock trials, debates, negotiations, role plays and mock parliament are employed to further engage students in these sessions.  The ABA's legal education activities in Tajikistan are supported by the USAID.