This morning one of my friends sent me a chilling BBC report about life in Uzbekistan that relates simultaneously to several of this blog’s concerns, including the fate of children [1], why no one from Uzbekistan has ever read this blog [2], and some of the evil consequences of the US cozying up in with the corrupt regime of Uzbekistan’s dictator in order to ease the logistics crisis in Afghanistan [3]. If my blog wasn’t banned in Uzbekistan already for generally being freedom loving, odds are this will not help matters.

So, let us get down to business. With the connivance of Western nations who covet good relations with Uzbekistan’s corrupt rulers on account of their geopolitical position, Uzbekistan is waging a savage and immoral war on children [4]. First, some context. Uzbekistan is a deeply poor nation, so poor that its citizens are fleeing by the millions to Kazakhstan and Russia for better opportunities there. About 30 million people live in Uzbekistan, and the population pressures there have been obvious since at least the mid 1990’s [5]. Instead of dealing with the problem of demographic pressures through education and moral suasion, the nation of Uzbekistan has chosen to do so through forced sterilization by taking out uteruses of young women after the first or second birth (often without their consent or even knowledge, while they are under general anesthesia for a c-section), by putting ob/gyns on quotas to sterilize a certain number of women per week (4 in the cities, and 8 in the countryside), and by pressuring people to voluntarily have their tubes tied by threatening their jobs and economic livelihood.

Now, they have done all this while claiming that their social policies are worthy of the emulation of the world. Only if they consider the eugenics and Hitlerian forced sterilization of the 1930’s in Germany and the United States as worthy of emulation (I don’t). Those reporters who are brave enough to talk about such matters are refused entry into the country by Uzbekistan’s repressive regime. Those who have suffered are too scared to talk for the most part, afraid that Uzbekistan’s secret police will find out they are speaking out and harm them and their families.

The mechanics of Uzbekistan’s forced sterilization is extremely troublesome. According to various estimates, about 80% of women have c-sections, and depending on the whims of the doctors, they have their uterus taken out without being informed or giving their consent on the first or second birth. Those who wish to have more than two children have to do so in other countries. Now, given that the Uzbekistan regime showed no compunction to slaughter up to 1,000 workers in a protest in the Ferghana Valley a few years ago, there is no reason to assume that this great interest in c-sections is to show concern for the health of women (many of whom appear to have health problems and suffer marital strife when their husbands assume they wanted to stop having children), but it is rather a way to achieve a government goal of stopping population growth without requiring on the consent of the people.

And why is this so? Because Uzbekistan cares very little about the consent of the people. What the regime desires to do is preserve its power, regardless of the fact that it requires immense repressive measures and harms the well-being of the people because of the lack of openness and high levels of paranoia. Dictators like Islam Karimov care nothing about the well being of the people at large except insofar as it makes them more secure in office dealing with less questions and less opposition. All that matters to them is their own safety and position. Everything else is to be sacrificed for their own selfish benefit while they consider themselves the embodiment of their nation. Let’s hope that Uzbekistan can find and make better leaders so that they can find a government that cares about the interests of the people at large. It’s a tough process, though.

So why do nations like the United States enable this? Because Uzbekistan sits in a strategic position just north of Afghanistan, controlling land from the Aral Sea to the Ferghana Valley. If you want to get goods into Afghanistan without going through Pakistan or over Iranian air space, you have to do it through or over Uzbekistan. And the United States would prefer to handle its logistics shortcomings by playing nice with dictators in Central Asia rather than doing the hard and long work of trying to promote better government over time in Russia’s backyard. Such short term thinking will lead to longer term harm. It would be far better for Uzbekistan to consider what opportunities to provide for its younger generation instead of trying to slaughter them off. But dictators seldom do what is wise or good, or else they would not be dictators in the first place.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/before-you-were-born-i-knew-you/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/countries-that-need-to-get-on-the-bandwagon/

[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/afghanistan-and-the-tyranny-of-logistics/

[4] http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20120412-1124a.mp3

[5] http://countrystudies.us/uzbekistan/18.htm