Uzbekistan Reports 107,167 Protection Orders as Gaps in Domestic Violence Justice Persist

Protection Orders Reach 107,167 in Nine Months

Uzbekistan issued 107,167 protection orders against harassment and violence during the first nine months of 2026, according to the National Agency for Social Protection. Alongside those orders, thousands of women and children received assistance, while the agency supported 810 court applications and helped people obtain medical care, vocational training and access to education.

The figures show the scale of demand for protection more than three years after Uzbekistan made domestic violence a criminal offense in April 2023. They also expose a central challenge: issuing an order, providing temporary assistance and securing lasting safety are different outcomes. The agency's figures count interventions, but do not establish how many orders were enforced successfully or how many recipients experienced further violence.

The agency published the figures in a statement on its Telegram channel. Its account covers harassment and violence, a broader category than domestic violence alone. The total should therefore not be read as a count of domestic violence prosecutions or convictions, nor as a confirmed number of individual survivors.

Where Women and Children Received Support

Primary assistance rooms provided help to 5,995 women and 2,842 children during the reporting period. Regional rehabilitation centers served 1,132 women and 1,575 children. These figures describe two parts of the support network, but the agency did not explain whether people who received help in one setting were later counted in the other.

Within the reported service counts, primary assistance rooms recorded 8,837 women and children, compared with 2,707 at rehabilitation centers. Children represented about 32% of the first total and 58% of the second. Those proportions show that children accounted for a substantial part of the centers' recorded work, although they do not explain differences in admission rules, referrals or length of stay.

It would be misleading to add the two totals and present the result as the number of distinct people assisted. Without information on repeat visits and transfers, the figures describe recorded service use rather than a verified count of unique recipients.

The distinction also matters when comparing assistance with the 107,167 protection orders. Orders and service records measure different activities, and the published figures do not show how many order recipients sought, needed or obtained a place in either support setting.

Help Extended to Health, Work and Education

The agency reported that 453 people received vocational training and 836 were helped to obtain medical care. It also assisted with enrolling 352 children in school and 541 in kindergarten, making 893 reported education placements across those two categories.

These services address practical problems that can accompany violence. Treatment, access to work and continuity in children's education can affect whether a person is able to leave an unsafe household and maintain a separate life. The figures document assistance, however, not what happened afterward: there is no reported employment outcome for those trained, or information about the treatment received by people referred for medical care.

The education figures likewise do not establish attendance or longer term continuity. They record help with enrollment. Even with those limits, they show that the agency's response extended beyond immediate protection to needs affecting both adults and children.

What the Legal Assistance Figures Show

The agency recorded 810 applications filed with courts. Separately, it listed practical assistance in 305 alimony cases, 223 enforcement proceedings, 76 cases involving admission or return to a home, 37 document restoration cases and 30 property division cases.

Those five categories total 671 reported instances of assistance. The statement does not explain whether they were included in the 810 court applications, whether some involved several forms of help, or whether others were handled outside court. The totals cannot be treated as directly matching categories.

The largest listed category was alimony, followed by enforcement proceedings. Alimony concerns financial support, while enforcement concerns carrying out an existing legal obligation or decision. Help returning to a home, restoring documents and dividing property addresses other practical consequences of family disputes and violence.

A court filing is also different from a court decision. The figures do not say how many applications succeeded, how long proceedings took, or whether financial and property decisions were carried out. These missing outcomes limit what the totals can tell readers about access to justice.

How the Legal Framework Changed

Uzbekistan's April 2023 reforms introduced administrative and criminal liability for domestic violence, alongside penalties for sexual harassment and other protections. Administrative liability generally covers conduct punished through fines or administrative detention; criminal liability can bring more serious penalties, including imprisonment.

The legislation addressed physical, psychological and economic violence within families. Changes also criminalized distributing intimate images without consent. In September 2024, further amendments explicitly extended domestic violence provisions to violence against children.

The main developments span several years:

• April 2023: Uzbekistan made domestic violence a distinct criminal offense and introduced related administrative penalties.
• September 2024: Amendments strengthened protections for children and changed when reconciliation applications could be considered.
• February 2025: Changes removed the mandatory reconciliation delay in divorce cases involving domestic violence.
• February 2026: The government approved a state program covering penalties, enforcement, services and measurable benchmarks.
• March 2026: A presidential decree set out further safety measures, including an SOS application and a police response goal.
• January to September 2026: The social protection agency reported issuing 107,167 protection orders.

The sequence shows that the latest figures follow several rounds of reform, rather than a single change in the law. It does not establish which measure accounts for the number of orders or the level of service use.

Reconciliation Still Limits Access to Justice

Human Rights Watch's March 2026 assessment cited a 2024 study by civil society organizations and the United Nations Development Programme that found more than 55% of domestic violence cases were dismissed through reconciliation procedures. More than 90% of victims lacked legal representation.

Human Rights Watch, the human rights organization, called for changes to how authorities handle cases and support survivors:

Authorities should end the routine dismissal of cases through reconciliation, ensure consistent enforcement of legal protections, expand survivor-centered services, and do more to address the surrounding stigma.

A separate account gives different figures for an earlier and more specific period: 61% of criminal domestic violence proceedings from May to September 2023 were resolved through reconciliation, while 28% of administrative trials were dismissed as insignificant. These percentages concern different periods and legal categories, so they cannot establish a trend on their own.

Reconciliation in a violence case must also be distinguished from a reconciliation period in divorce proceedings. The first can affect whether a case proceeds toward punishment. The second delays a decision on ending a marriage while a court seeks to preserve the relationship.

Accounts describe the February 2025 divorce reform in slightly different terms. Human Rights Watch says Uzbekistan removed the mandatory court imposed reconciliation period in cases involving domestic violence. A separate legal account says victims can request that judges not set such a period. Both describe an exemption for survivors, but the latter makes the request by the victim part of the procedure.

Rising Case Numbers Need Careful Comparison

Reported domestic violence cases referred by police to rehabilitation centers rose from roughly 11,000 in 2020 to 16,000 in 2024. That is an increase of about 5,000 cases, or 45%, using those approximate figures. It indicates greater recorded demand, but does not by itself distinguish an increase in violence from improved reporting or changes in referrals.

After the April 2023 reforms, 8,928 people were reported charged and convicted under administrative provisions during 2023, with another 203 convicted under criminal provisions. For the first ten months of 2024, the reported figures were 15,400 administrative prosecutions and 399 criminal convictions.

According to Uzbekistan's Supreme Court, more than 10,000 individuals were prosecuted for domestic violence in the first ten months of 2025. That total does not provide the same administrative and criminal breakdown as the earlier figures.

These statistics cannot support a simple comparison showing prosecutions rising or falling each year. They cover different periods and use different measures, including prosecutions and convictions. None is directly comparable with the 2026 protection order total, which measures a protective intervention rather than a finding of legal responsibility.

New Safety Measures Have Targets, Not Yet Outcomes

The February 2026 state program aims to strengthen penalties for violence against women and children, improve enforcement, expand services and introduce measurable benchmarks. The March presidential decree added an SOS emergency application for women with protection orders, with police expected to reach reported locations within 10 minutes.

The decree also introduced free training before marriage, with a goal of reaching up to half of couples marrying in 2026 and all couples by 2030. These are stated targets. The protection order and assistance figures do not establish whether the application is available to every eligible woman, whether police meet the response goal, or how many couples have completed training.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, speaking at an International Women's Day event at the Presidential Palace, described women's place in the country's development:

Without women and their wonderful, noble qualities, it is impossible to imagine the development of society and life itself.

The presidency's statement also said that future laws would be assessed for their effects on women's rights and interests. The practical test is whether those commitments produce accessible protection and effective action when violence occurs.

What the Latest Figures Leave Unanswered

A December 2025 report by the International Partnership for Human Rights documented restricted access to shelters, services and legal aid, together with social stigma, geographic differences in services and insufficient training among officials. Those findings help explain why a large number of protection orders cannot alone demonstrate that survivors receive adequate support.

The agency's latest totals do not identify regional distribution, unmet requests for shelter, breaches of protection orders or repeat violence. They also do not show how many people received legal representation, a key gap identified in the 2024 study.

No next hearing, publication date or evaluation deadline accompanies the reported figures. The stated future milestones are the marriage training goals for 2026 and 2030. For protection orders and emergency responses, the missing information is performance: whether restrictions are respected, calls receive timely action and survivors can obtain services without barriers.

Uzbekistan has expanded its legal tools and recorded substantial protection and assistance activity. Assessing their effectiveness now requires connecting those interventions to outcomes, including safety, completed court proceedings, access to housing and sustained support for children.

Key Points

• Uzbekistan reported 107,167 protection orders against harassment and violence in the first nine months of 2026.
• Primary assistance rooms recorded help for 5,995 women and 2,842 children; rehabilitation centers served 1,132 women and 1,575 children.
• The agency supported 810 court applications, 453 vocational training recipients and 836 people seeking medical care.
• A 2024 study found more than 55% of domestic violence cases dismissed through reconciliation and more than 90% of victims without legal representation.
• New measures include an SOS application and a 10 minute police response goal, but the latest figures do not report their performance.
• The order total does not establish the number of distinct survivors or how many people achieved lasting safety.