Dushanbe Mayor Rustam Emomali has signed a resolution on allocation of 2.546 million somoni (TJS) to provide extraordinary grants to women working with road and community services of the Dushanbe administration on the occasion of the Day of the Mother and Navrouz holiday female street sweepers.

According to the Dushanbe administration’s website, they got the extraordinary grants on March 5.  

According to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, 2.500 street sweepers now work in Dushanbe at an average monthly wage of 600-800 somoni.  Women reportedly constitute about 80 percent of workers of the Dushanbe community services.  

Dushanbe has the reputation of being a clean city.  This is largely down to the efforts of its armies of street sweepers who start work every day before dawn, equipped only with brooms made out of twigs.  Street sweepers are mostly female, although there are a few men who join their ranks, either very young or elderly.