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Female Prisoners Released Also Face Stigma, Difficulties 
Unfortunately, the enormous legal, psychological, physical, and financial hardships suffered by 
Uzbekistan’s former political prisoners are not limited to men. Several female former prisoners with 
whom I have met have described lives after release in which they feel invisible, marginalised, and 
even less able to access justice for the ordeals they have endured. In June 2018, I met Dilorom 
Abdukodirova at her home in Andijan. Abdukodirova had been given an 18-year sentence in 2010 
after traveling back to Uzbekistan to reunite with her children. Five years earlier, she had fled the 
country after being an eyewitness to the brutal Andijan massacre, when Uzbek government troops 
shot and killed hundreds of largely unarmed protestors near the city’s central square. Abdukodirova 
served out her sentence in Uzbekistan’s single women’s prison in Zangiota in the Tashkent region. 
Abdukodirova developed severe leg and hip pain while in prison. She could not even sit down for 
more than a few minutes due to the pain when I interviewed her family in her home. Abdukodirova 
deserves justice, support, and financial compensation for her wrongful imprisonment far from her 
family. Social support structures and medical, psychosocial services she and other former prisoners 
need are largely non-existent and should be established without delay.