Seven women now hold senior posts in the Tajik government, which the presidential press service said reflected the growing role of women in public administration.
Emomali Rakhmonov appointed Gulmira Khamrokulova deputy finance minister, Mavjuda Keldiyerova as deputy energy minister, and Aikhon Sharipova as deputy minister for water resources. He also offered the post of presidential aide for science and technology to Latofat Nasriddinova and made Bunafsha Odinayeva second in charge of the government's drug control agency.
Addressing the new appointees, Rakhmonov said: "Training young personnel and engaging women in state and public decision-making are among the priorities of the government's personnel policy."
The current share of women in high-ranking positions in Tajikistan is 15%.
The government of neighboring Kyrgyzstan has also made increasing the number of women in the corridors of power a priority.
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, swept into power on the back of the 2005 "tulip" revolution, signed a decree in March setting a 30% threshold on female representation in the government. He said "conditions should be created for women's empowerment," adding that this was one of "the country's international obligations." Until then, the migration minister was the only woman in the Kyrgyz Cabinet and the ex-Soviet nation's 75-seat parliament had no women MPs at all.
