'My Kid, My Rules': Central Asia's Child Abuse Epidemic

When a father in Tajikistan accused his 15-year-old son of stealing cash -- the equivalent of $60 -- he did not take him to the police or even scold him. Instead, he tied the boy's legs with a rope, dragged him behind his car, and filmed the ordeal. The teenager died of his injuries.

The July killing sent shock waves across Tajikistan, where corporal punishment was banned in 2024. Yet in many families in Central Asia corporal punishment is not only common, it is the norm. Slaps for poor grades, ear-pulls for disobedience, beatings "to instill discipline" remain embedded in the parenting culture.

The phrase "My child, my rules" is frequently invoked as a justification, covering up harmful actions that often constitute abuse.

The teenager's killing in the town of Tursunzade, 60 kilometers from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, was not an isolated case. In November 2024, Tajik social media was flooded with footage of a grandmother from the southern region of Khatlon striking five children aged 3 to 7 with a stick as they lay on the floor crying. A month earlier, a mother in the same province was caught on video punching her 10-year-old son in public until his nose bled.

According to Tajikistan's Interior Ministry, 994 crimes were committed against minors in 2024, a more than 30 percent increase over the previous year. Forty-eight of those cases involved serious injury. With 40 percent of Tajikistan's 10 million people being under the age of 28, the scale of violence is significant.

"According to the latest demographic and health survey, 56 percent of children under 14 have experienced violence at home," a UNICEF representative in Dushanbe, who asked to remain anonymous, told RFE/RL.

Using physical punishment to parent is common across Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, a 2023 UNICEF survey found that 62 percent of children under 14 had been subjected to violent discipline. That led parliament to adopt a new law this spring banning all forms of corporal punishment by parents.

In in Kazakhstan, UNICEF reported in 2023 that 53 percent of children experienced either psychological or physical punishment. Among toddlers between the ages of 1 and 2, the figure was 38 percent. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged Astana to impose a legal ban, which the country still lacks.

In Kyrgyzstan, plans are under way to prohibit corporal punishment following a 2023 survey that found 65 percent of children experience violent discipline at home and 37 percent endure physical punishment.

'Parental Illiteracy'

In recent years, a troubling pattern has appeared in Central Asia: Some parents are physically abusing and humiliating their children on camera, intentionally recording these acts to send to spouses or other family members. Such videos are used to manipulate and put pressure on relatives.

In February, in Uzbekistan, a mother was recorded beating her infant and threatening to kill him to spite her husband. In 2023, an Uzbek father in the country's Tashkent Province filmed himself kicking and choking his toddler to torment his wife.

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Elzhas Ertaiuly, director of the Happy Family counseling center in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, says the main problem is parental illiteracy.

"Many think: Why waste time explaining right and wrong when you can yell or threaten and achieve compliance in minutes?" Ertaiuly said. "Aggression toward children is a sign of parental weakness, emotional instability, and ignorance."

"You may have a master's degree and be a professional, but if you don't know the values of family life and the harm of certain methods, you are illiterate in family relations," Ertaiuly said. "That illiteracy allows you to punish children without thinking."

Madina Sharipova, a psychologist and associate professor at Tajik National University in Dushanbe, said the violence is cyclical. "Children who grow up with yelling and insults have no other example. They reproduce the same patterns when they become parents."

Muazzam Ibragimova, a child psychologist in Uzbekistan, warns that repeated punishment destroys a child's sense of safety.

"Pain comes from the person who should protect them. That breaks trust and creates chronic stress," she said. "Children stop distinguishing between their actions and themselves. They don't think: 'I did something wrong.' They think: 'I am bad.'"

The result, she said, is a destructive worldview: "[Such parents] internalize the model that force guarantees obedience. Later, they either dominate others or seek someone to dominate them. That is how the cycle of violence keeps going."

Societal problems also amplify the risks, according to Gulchehra Rahmonova, director of the NGO Legal Initiative in Tajikistan.

"A large share of the population lives below the poverty line. Financial instability and lack of food, housing, or clothing create enormous stress. Aggression spills onto the most vulnerable -- the children," Rahmonova said.

Children of Central Asian migrant workers are especially at risk. Left with relatives while parents earn money abroad, they often face neglect or abuse. In Uzbekistan's Tashkent Province in March 2024, a woman fatally beat her 6-year-old niece for failing to do her homework.

The story of the death of the Tajik teenager dragged behind his father's car became known only because it was filmed and appeared online. Only a fraction of violent incidents such as this ever come to light.

The challenge, experts say, is not only to punish perpetrators but to teach families that discipline without violence is both possible and necessary.