Kazakhstan Adopts Long-Promised Amendments to Trade Union Law, 17 December 2020

Kazakhstan has taken an important step toward improving trade union rights – a major area of human rights concern in the country.

Last month Kazakhstan’s labor minister, Birzhan Nurymbetov, briefed Human Rights Watch on legal changes, adopted in May, that improve the regulatory framework for trade union organizing...

Previously, many trade unions had been unable to register or were shuttered by court order due to burdensome registration requirements. In addition, a handful of outspoken trade union leaders were criminally prosecuted and jailed in retaliation for union activities...

Human Rights Watch will continue to call on the government to register trade unions that the authorities previously shuttered and end harassment of trade union activists.