Submission by Human Rights Watch to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights List of Issues of Turkmenistan

We write in advance of the 77th session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“the Committee”) ahead of its consideration of the List of Issues for the review of Turkmenistan to share our research findings that relate to the country’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“the Covenant”). We hope this submission will inform the Committee’s preparation of its List of Issues to seek further clarity on Turkmenistan’s compliance with the Covenant. This submission focuses on rights violations in the context of Turkmenistan authorities’ blanket refusal to issue and renew passports to Turkmenistan citizens abroad via its consular services and includes information on how this refusal impacts the right to work (Articles 6 and 7), social security (Article 9), family (Article 10), adequate standard of living (Article 11), and education (Article 13). This submission is based on research findings published in a November 2024 report by Human Rights Watch and the Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights on the government’s refusal to renew passports through consular services in Türkiye, and the hardships this imposes on Turkmen migrants in Türkiye.[1] 

This submission also raises an issue related to the Turkmenistan government’s approach to expanding its social security system.

1. In recent years Turkmenistan stopped issuing and/or renewing biometric passports or replacing old passports for its citizens living abroad via diplomatic missions. This practice takes place in the wider context of the Turkmenistan government’s extreme repression within the country, its efforts to silence dissent among Turkmen citizens and diaspora abroad and to pressure them to return to Turkmenistan, and other actions that restrict the rights of its citizens both at home and abroad. The denial of passport renewals through consular services, with the requirement to return to Turkmenistan for passport renewal, is yet another example of Turkmenistan government’s control of people’s personal freedoms, economic opportunities and political rights and is a form of transnational repression. As a result of authorities’ denial of passports, many Turkmen migrants abroad become unable to comply with the migration requirements of their host countries, are rendered undocumented, and risk being detained and deported.
2. Many migrants from Turkmenistan fear, with solid grounds, that should they return to the country in order to renew their passports, they will be barred from leaving again. Individuals who have become politically active abroad additionally fear, with credible grounds, being imprisoned and tortured. For these reasons, many decided not to return to Turkmenistan for passport renewals after Turkmen consular officials in Türkiye denied them passports.[2]
3. Human Rights Watch has documented how the government of Turkmenistan’s refusal of passports interferes with people’s right to freedom of movement and right to family life, and limits people’s access to social and other services and rights in Türkiye. Without valid passports, Turkmen nationals in Türkiye are rendered undocumented and they cannot apply for or extend residence or work permits and visas.
4. Due to Turkmenistani migrants’ lack of legal status once they are without valid passports, in Türkiye they cannot sign apartment leases, apply for and maintain legal employment authorization, open or use bank accounts, or obtain public and/or private health insurance. They also face barriers in sending their children to school or registering births or marriages.
5. Although the government of Türkiye has obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill certain social and economic rights of Turkmenistani migrants it hosts, this submission focuses on the obligation of the government of Turkmenistan to provide passport renewal services to its citizens abroad, including in Türkiye, and on how the government of Turkmenistan’s persistent refusal to do so jeopardizes certain social and economic rights of its citizens living in Türkiye.

Interference with the Right to Work (Article 6 and 7)

6. Human Rights Watch has documented that without proper documentation, undocumented Turkmenistani migrants are unable to access formal employment in Türkiye. The inability to be legally employed abroad pushes them into informal and insecure employment, where conditions are often unsafe, wages are low, and where they may face lack of legal protection against workplace exploitation and abuse, including due to a fear of detention and deportation if they report violations or file complaints with relevant Turkish authorities.
7. By denying Turkmen nationals the ability to obtain passports abroad via consular services, Turkmenistan authorities curb their access to economic opportunities available in host countries, preventing remittances, which further perpetuate economic hardships for many Turkmen nationals in Türkiye and their families in Turkmenistan. Authorities’ denial of passports, therefore, hinders people’s ability to secure work.  

Interference with the Right to Social Security and the Right to Health

(Articles 9 and 12)

8. Turkmenistani migrant workers in Türkiye without valid passports, and therefore without work or residence permits, are excluded from the public social security and healthcare systems, including free-of-cost essential health services, visits to doctors and hospitals, prescription medication, minimum maternity benefits, unemployment benefits, and an old-age pension. This puts them in a situation of elevated risk of financial instability and insecurity, especially when they face common life events, such as old age, unemployment, sickness, or birthing and caring for dependents that constitute the nine principal branches of social security. Together, these restrictions create access barriers that undermine these migrant workers’ rights to social security and health.
9. Without a valid passport, residence or work permit, they cannot obtain jobs, for which employers would register them with Türkiye’s state social security institution (SGK), which offers enrolled foreign nationals who are residents in Türkiye access to the public healthcare system. Because of this exclusion based on their documentation status, migrants from Turkmenistan often have no choice but to either pay unaffordable out-of-pocket costs for healthcare goods and services at private clinics and hospitals or ration or forego health care altogether.

Violation of the Right to Family Protection (Article 10)

10. Turkmenistani authorities’ refusal to renew passports through the consulates in Türkiye creates serious barriers for Turkmenistani nationals wishing to marry in Türkiye and precludes them from applying for a marriage certificate at the municipal marriage departments. Under Turkish marriage regulations, a valid passport, ID or a birth certificate, and a “certificate of non-marriage registration” (showing one is not already married) are among documents necessary for applying for a marriage.[3]
11. In two cases Human Rights Watch documented, Turkmenistani authorities denied passports to Turkmenistani nationals wishing to marry in Türkiye. And in one of the two cases, they also refused to provide any assistance with a certificate of non-marriage registration to a Turkmenistani woman.
12. Undocumented Turkmenistani migrants abroad may also face threats of family separation and barriers to family reunification, Human Rights Watch documented instances in which parents have not seen their children [in at least two cases for nearly a decade] and have not been able to reunite with their family, including by travelling to a third country, after they left Turkmenistan seeking adequate income abroad. Without valid passports or alternative travel documents allowing international travel, Turkmenistani migrants cannot travel to third countries to reunite with their families, even if they wanted to.
13. The inability to obtain passports and other essential documents significantly undermines the right of many citizens of Turkmenistan to family unity and family life.

Interference with the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living (Article 11)

14. Adequate housing is essential for maintaining an adequate standard of living. In Türkiye, without at least a valid passport, or a residence or work permit that is tied to a valid passport, foreigners cannot sign a lease on an apartment rental. Turkmenistani migrants, whose passports expired while in Türkiye and who were denied passport renewals via Turkmenistan consular services, face serious obstacles accessing, maintaining and securing adequate housing, forcing many to make living arrangements in which they are invisible to the authorities and to live in precarious and potentially unhealthy or unsafe conditions, often with little access to public services like sanitation or heating.
15. Human Rights Watch documented cases of Turkmenistani nationals sharing overcrowded accommodations with many of their family members and relatives, where usually at least one has a valid passport and can sign rent and utilities contracts.
16. By denying passports to its citizens abroad, Turkmenistani authorities force them into informal, unsafe, and unstable housing conditions and thereby hinder their right to an adequate standard of living.

Interference with the Right to Education (Article 13)

17. Without a valid passport, migrants from Turkmenistan cannot obtain birth certificates from Turkish authorities for their children born in Türkiye. And Turkmenistani authorities also deny them access to Turkmenistan birth certificates via its consular services abroad. Foreign children who do not have a birth certificate face serious challenges enrolling in Turkish schools. Turkish law requires the parents or guardians of a foreign child to possess a document confirming the child’s identity and foreigner identity number in order to access education in Türkiye.
18. Research for the November 2024 Human Rights Watch/Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights report documented three instances in which Turkmenistan consular officials repeatedly refused to issue birth certificates to Turkmenistani citizens’ four children born in Türkiye, in two cases telling parents, who were denied passport renewals in Türkiye, that they should return to Turkmenistan with their children and apply for birth certificates there.
19. Turkmenistani authorities’ refusal to issue birth certificates to Turkmenistani children born abroad violates these children’s right to have their legal identity recognized. Registration of birth is a fundamental human right in itself as well as in practice in many countries a prerequisite to the enjoyment of other rights, including the right to education. The undocumented parents interviewed by Human Rights Watch who said they could not enroll their children in Turkish schools due to lack of the required documents expressed utter hopelessness over their children’s lack of access to education.
20. By refusing to provide passport renewal services to Turkmenistani nationals that would allow them to obtain legal status in a host country, and by denying birth certificates to their children, Turkmenistani authorities are responsible for creating barriers of access to education for the school-age children of many Turkmenistani migrants.
21. Without access to education, undocumented Turkmenistani migrants’ children may face long-term disadvantages, including social exclusion.

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee ask the government of Turkmenistan:

22. What steps is the government taking to ensure access to passports and other essential identity documents to Turkmenistani citizens abroad, so that they can access goods and services essential to their rights to health, housing, education, work, social security, family protection and an adequate standard of living?
23. What is preventing the government from establishing a system, whereby the biometric content of expired passports can be read and replicated in new passports by shipping expired or expiring passports to migration services in Turkmenistan, where biometric content can be read, and shipping the new biometric passports back to the consular offices of the host country?

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee call on the Turkmenistan government to:

24. Ensure Turkmenistani nationals abroad have access to passport renewal services via Turkmenistan’s consular and diplomatic missions worldwide and authorize these consulates to start renewing expired or expiring passports or reissuing passports in case of a loss without undue delay and without arbitrary requirements or restrictions.
25. Issue clear instructions to all consular services abroad and migration authorities in Turkmenistan that Turkmenistani citizens do not have to return to Turkmenistan in order to get new passports.
26. Consider a process for ensuring that the biometric content of expired passports can be read and replicated in new passports by, at the very least, shipping expired or expiring passports to migration services in Turkmenistan, where biometric content can be read, and shipping the new biometric passports back to the consular offices of the host country. Turkmenistan authorities should consider authorizing Turkmenistan’s consulates and diplomatic missions to issue temporary emergency passports or other identification documents to Turkmenistani nationals for use while their passports are being renewed.

Towards Universal Social Security and Addressing Food Insecurity

27. The state party report lists six specific types of social security benefits (loss of capacity for work, maternity leave, childbirth allowance, childcare allowance, disability allowance, and surviving spouse of veterans’ allowance) and a broad category of “state social benefits.”[4] There does not appear to be state effort to gather data about the situation on poverty and inequality in the country, nor programs to support families and individuals experiencing food insecurity and hunger, or larger scale efforts to address the roots of food insecurity. Human Rights Watch noted this absence in its 2020 report on food security in Turkmenistan.[5]

Questions for the government of Turkmenistan:

28. Does the government currently have a program of state assistance that supports families and individuals experiencing food insecurity or hunger? If not, why not? What share of the population is covered by six types of social security benefits listed above?