On Tuesday March 7, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon held a meeting with female activists in Dushanbe on the occasion of the Day of the Mother that is marked in Tajikistan on March 8.

The meeting took place at the Kokhi Borbad State Complex. 

The head of state congratulated the meeting participants on the Day of the Mother and then they discussed problems facing the country and Tajik women.

In a statement delivered at the meeting, Rahmon, in particular, offered establishment of a quota for female representation in government.

He also ordered the government to employ more women in communications and banking sectors, according to the Tajik president’s official website.

Rahmon reportedly noted that the government had worked out the national women support program that will be approved in the near future.  

Today, of 19,000 Tajik public servants, 4,200 are women.  Women constitute more than 70 percent of teachers and 60 percent of medical workers in Tajikistan.

235 women work with judicial bodies, 46 women work with prosecutor’s offices, 1,500 women work with Interior Ministry’s offices, 400 women work with the Ministry of Defense, 36 women work with the counter narcotics agency, 24 women work with the anticorruption agency, 178 women work with the Committee on Emergency Situations, 107 women work with the Customs Service, and 300 women work with the National Guard.  

According to the president, 138,000 women in Tajikistan are engaged in entrepreneurship and 20,500 women head farming units.

The official part of the meeting was followed by a festive concert.  

Recall, International Women’s Day has been known in Tajikistan as the Day of the Mother since March 2009.  Congratulating women on March 8, 2009, President Emomali Rahmon said that International Women’s Day has only been celebrated on March 8 for about 100 years, but that ancient Aryan women -- the ancestors of the Tajiks -- had special days both for mothers, specifically, and for women in general.