United Nations and Women of Kyrgyzstan Creating a Movement Towards Justice
ActiveArt was commissioned by UN Women to develop a project that engaged and raised awareness of the Kyrgyz constitutional commitment to women and girls living in the country.  

Working with over 200 women ActiveArt ran a series of 17 workshops in every corner of Kyrgyzstan, that culminated in a large scale narrative quilt and short YouTube clips based on each section.   
Through this large-scale textile and video piece, women from different backgrounds and all regions of the country were able to speak out in international political and public arenas, articulating their lived experiences of discrimination, and demanding change.


The quilt and video work communicate the impact of the gap between dejour realisation of women's human rights proclaimed by the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and their defacto implementation.  To date, the work has been presented at the UN Palais de Nations in Geneva, the UN headquarters in New York and resides permanently in the Kyrgyz Supreme Court.

CEDAW in Kyrgyzstan: A Movement Towards Justice

Bride Kidnapping

Made by a group of ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz women in the remote province of Batken, this quilt panel tells of the impact of non-consensual bride-kidnapping on women, and the infringement on their right to choose when, whom and under what circumstances to marry.  Every woman taking part in the workshop had been kidnapped and described their experience of being snatched from the street into a dark car by a group of usually drunk young men as being pounced on by a wolf.  They made the wolf the central image of the piece.  Attached by chains to the wolf’s leg is a bird wanting to fly away but tethered to her kidnapper.  The chain also was designed to represent the societal pressures on women to remain with their kidnapper along with the pressure of the consistent cultural normalising of bride kidnapping as 'traditional' and part of a 'national identity'.  

Women and Domestic Violence

This design is of dark windows in an apartment block represent the statistic of one in four women who experience domestic violence. Outside is a drunk husband with a horsewhip; a common tool used by rural men to beat their wives. A woman and her children leave the abusive situation, bearing expressions of sadness and fear. The snake, a symbol of violence, winds its way through the piece, attacking a woman who tries to reach out for her rights, as embodied in the text of the CEDAW convention. 

Women and Disability

The group wanted to show how they, as women with disability, are silenced and prevented from participating fully in society, both through physical barriers to freedom of movement and through attitudes of disrespect and disregard in society. The top area shows a woman in a wheelchair attempting to speak to a group of people who ignore her and walk away, thinking only of their full bellies and bulging pockets.  The central area depicts the potholed footpaths and impossible steps to the White House - the Kyrgyz seat of parliament.  The bottom section shows a disheveled woman unable to go to a hairdresser because there is no disability access, this was a very important part of the piece as almost all the individuals in the group felt that they were not expected to own or enjoy their femininity or bodies because of their physical impairments. 

Women Refugees

Designed and made by Afghan women this section of the quilt explores both the circumstances for women in Afghanistan and their experiences as refugees in Kyrgyzstan.  Behind the central portrait are images of war, gender inequalities and the physical and economic impact of war on people in current day Afghanistan.  In front the figure in white is shown blindfolded with one severed arm, unable to access the scales of justice she holds.
 

Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people

This panel of the quilt was made by a group of LGBT activists in Bishkek.  They wanted to show the physical and emotional brutality against lesbians, bi-sexual women and transgender people in Kyrgyz society. Often an invisible minority, LBT people are often abused within their families for transgressing gender and sexuality norms, and are not protected from discrimination by legal structures.  We see in this piece a situation where a lesbian woman ‘comes out’ to her parents.  Her partner tries to protect her from her father’s blows, while to the left two women are verbally and emotionally abusive.  All three abusers are shown as puppets on strings – potentially loving parents who are manipulated by discriminatory ideas about sexual orientation and gender that make their way through tradition, religion, politics and the media.

Women and Reproductive Health

Made by maternity doctors, midwives and new mothers, this piece addresses the infringement of women’s right to choose the number and spacing of their children, and exposes the lack of acceptable medical care resulting in high levels of maternal and infant mortality in Kyrgyzstan.  The central image is of a woman nursing her child.  Around her are images of a graveyard, a pregnant woman with lots of little girls and a husband demanding boys, and a pregnant woman negotiating a price with a doctor for medical care. This piece was made in workshops in a maternity hospital outside Bishkek where passionate, highly trained doctors and nurses worked with few medical supplies in a building with no internal bathrooms or running water.

Internal migration

Workshops were held in Ak Ordo, a small informal migrant settlement outside of the capital.  It is poorly a serviced area without running water, schools, crèches, recreational facilities or public transport systems.  The lives of the women who made this panel depict themselves in informal housing, looking for day-to-day informal work as domestic workers, being trapped at home with the children because of lack of crèche services, being forced to bribe school principals to allow their children access to school, and the difficulty of finding work as older women. Underlying many of these ongoing problems is the registration system for internal migrants in Kyrgyzstan, where citizens must register their new address on moving to different parts of the country.  A seemingly small thing causes a lot of damage as landlords and private individuals predominantly rent out space informally and  meaning that most internal migrants are left without an official address to register with and consequently little access to basic rights such as education, health care and police protection.

Rural women

A group of rural women came together to design this panel based on their experiences.  The graphic central image shows a woman dragging a heavy sack by her neck.  It is filled with her tasks such as domestic work, bringing up children, working the land, selling produce at local markets, and being the first to go hungry if there is not enough food.  While the woman is burdened with this heavy workload, her husband is depicted drinking alcohol and lying down, showing the harsh reality of high unemployment rates in rural areas and the impact of loss of status for unemployed men in these communities. 

Young women

The group of young women who made this piece wanted to explore the discriminatory expectations found in family structures that favour different roles for boys and girls.  Looking at the impact of inherited gender roles, they show the very different paths that a boy and girl’s lives are expected to take. While the boy’s road may include travel, an exciting career, money, a car and a home with an open door, the girls path may include forced marriage or bride kidnapping, doing housework, looking after children and having the door of her home firmly closed.