World Report 2022: Events of 2021, 13 January 2022

The Kazakh government continued to claim it is pursuing human rights reforms, despite the absence of meaningful improvements in its rights record...

There was an increase in spontaneous strikes, with workers across the country demanding better pay and working conditions. In June, the International Labour Organization (ILO) heavily criticized Kazakhstan for violating international labor rights standards...

In February 2021, a Shymkent court suspended the independent Industrial Trade Union of Fuel and Energy Workers for six months for allegedly failing to register in accordance with Kazakhstan’s restrictive 2014 trade union law. The Congress of Free Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan’s largest independent trade union, remains unable to register.

There was an increase in spontaneous workers’ strikes and local initiatives to unionize in 2021, including in Aktobe region, Nursultan, and Almaty. Authorities in some cases took legal action against workers for organizing “illegal” strikes.

In June, the ILO issued highly critical conclusions and recommendations on Kazakhstan’s compliance with the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, instructing the government to “stop judicial harassment practices of trade union leaders” and review the cases of individual union leaders...