Around 200 activists and supporters marched on International Women's Day in the centre of Almaty, marking the largest rally for women’s rights in the history of independent Kazakhstan.

After years of organising for women’s rights, five feminist initiatives came together to voice one of the central problems for women in Kazakhstan: safety. “We are Kazakhstani women. We all have experience of living in a country where we do not feel safe and where the laws do not protect us. Security is the basic need of every person, and it is precisely what we are deprived of,” the activists wrote in their manifesto.

Violence against women and girls is widespread throughout Central Asia. A 2018 study conducted with the support of UN Women showed that 17% of women aged 18-75 in Kazakhstan have experienced physical or sexual abuse from a partner, and 21% have experienced psychological abuse. According to UN statistics, one-in-three women in the world has been abused.

Because this data only reflects cases where the victim contacts the police, activists say that the real picture of violence against women in Kazakhstan is more pervasive than official reports claim. According to the public foundation “Don’t be quiet” (#NeMolchiKZ), every day an average of eight women and two children are raped in Kazakhstan. The tradition of oppression via cultural stigmas and other means of control drives society to absolve abusive behaviour. In Kazakh, the word “uyat” is used as shorthand for a systematic set of rules that justify social oppression of women. Loosely translated as “shame” in English, “uyat” encompasses a wider set of gendered guilt, from cultural to religious practices that a woman is expected to carry out according to “tradition”.