Qurghonteppa, Tajikistan - "Where have all the young men gone, gone to Russia everyone," might be the modified refrain of a folk song in many a rural village in Tajikistan, at least for the women folk left behind.
In the countryside of this Central Asian nation, women in their colourful flowing tent-like dresses are to be seen everywhere, but men of working age are scarce. In the cotton fields, which proliferate the country, most workers are women or even children, despite it being illegal for them to work.
The small town of Lensn is about 25 kilometres from the city of Qurghonteppa, formerly known as Kurgan-Tyube, the administrative capital of the Viloyati Khatlon region. In some of the rural settlements near Lensn, self-help groups have started.
These help the population solve many problems related to basics, even such as supply of water that in fully functioning societies would be dealt with after a phone call or a letter to a local authority.
The members of one of the self-help groups near Lensn sit on embroidered mats shaded from the blazing sun on an extended veranda attached to the leader's house. Only one man is there. This is normal, say the women. Some of them complain that their men folk are working in Russia and say if they were home then perhaps they could exert some pressure on the authorities to get things fixed.
"No I say, let them stay there. I haven't heard from my husband for two years, so why should he come back now," one woman exclaims and everyone laughs. But another chips in, "No, we need them here. I want my husband back."
Even if the women want their men back, there is no guarantee they will return alive. In 2005, Tajikistan's Interior Ministry said that in the first half of the year Russia had sent back the bodies of 155 Tajikistanis who went to work there as migrants. Ninety percent of them were aged 13 to 35 and most of them residents of the Khatlon region, the authorities said.
The self-help group helps negotiate micro loans for its members to help sustain their small businesses, and the woman who keeps the accounts explains the benefits to the supporting NGO, Ghamkhori.
"From the courses we've been given, I've learned to keep proper financial records," she says. "We've been taught how to write letters and to how to make a case for our businesses." These include enterprises that sell traditional crafts and others that manage their own fields of fresh produce.
Ghamkhori in turn is supported by the Ecumenical Consortium for Central Asia (ECCA), made up of British-based Christian Aid, DanChurchAid from Denmark, the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation (ICCO) and Norwegian Church Aid.
This grouping has made the development of "civil society", a priority. So these Christian organizations are pumping in resources, and working along with other NGOs and international organizations. High on the agencies' agenda, and in a milieu that is now predominantly Islamic, is the humbly named "self-help group".
