Afghanistan vs. Turkmenistan
Transnational Issues
| Afghanistan | Turkmenistan | |
|---|---|---|
| Disputes - international | Afghan, Coalition, and Pakistan military meet periodically to clarify the alignment of the boundary on the ground and on maps and since 2014 have met to discuss collaboration on the Taliban insurgency and counterterrorism efforts; Afghan and Iranian commissioners have discussed boundary monument densification and resurvey; Iran protests Afghanistan's restricting flow of dammed Helmand River tributaries during drought; Pakistan has sent troops across and built fences along some remote tribal areas of its treaty-defined Durand Line border with Afghanistan which serve as bases for foreign terrorists and other illegal activities; Russia remains concerned about the smuggling of poppy derivatives from Afghanistan through Central Asian countries | cotton monoculture in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan creates water-sharing difficulties for Amu Darya river states; field demarcation of the boundaries with Kazakhstan commenced in 2005; bilateral talks continue with Azerbaijan on dividing the seabed and contested oilfields in the middle of the Caspian |
| Illicit drugs | world's largest producer of opium; poppy cultivation increased 63 percent, to 328,304 hectares in 2017; while eradication increased slightly, it still remains well below levels achieved in 2015; the 2017 crop yielded an estimated 9,000 mt of raw opium, a 88% increase over 2016; the Taliban and other antigovernment groups participate in and profit from the opiate trade, which is a key source of revenue for the Taliban inside Afghanistan; widespread corruption and instability impede counterdrug efforts; most of the heroin consumed in Europe and Eurasia is derived from Afghan opium; Afghanistan is also struggling to respond to a burgeoning domestic opiate addiction problem; a 2015 national drug use survey found that roughly 11% of the population tested positive for one or more illicit drugs; vulnerable to drug money laundering through informal financial networks; illicit cultivation of cannabis and regional source of hashish (2018) | transit country for Afghan narcotics bound for Russian and Western European markets; transit point for heroin precursor chemicals bound for Afghanistan |
| Refugees and internally displaced persons | refugees (country of origin): 72,191 (Pakistan) (2019) IDPs: 3.547 million (mostly Pashtuns and Kuchis displaced in the south and west due to natural disasters and political instability) (2020) | stateless persons: 3,924 (2020) |
| Trafficking in persons | current situation: human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims and returning Afghan migrants and exploit Afghan victims abroad; internal trafficking is more prevalent than transnational trafficking; traffickers exploit men, women, and a large number of children domestically; victims are subjected to forced labor in agriculture, brick kilns, carpet weaving, domestic servitude, commercial sex, begging, poppy cultivation and harvesting, salt mining, transnational drug smuggling, and truck driving; Afghan security forces and non-state armed groups, including the pro-government militias and the Taliban, continue to unlawfully recruit and use child soldiers; sexual exploitation of boys remains pervasive nationwide, and traffickers subject some boys to sexual exploitation abroad tier rating: Tier 3 - Afghanistan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons and is not making significant efforts to do so; the government decreased law enforcement efforts against civilian and official perpetrators of trafficking, and officials complicit in recruitment and use of child soldiers and the sexual exploitation of boys continued to operate with impunity; authorities continued to arrest, detain, and penalize many trafficking victims, including punishing sex trafficking victims for "moral crimes"; the judiciary remained underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained (2020) | current situation: Turkmenistan is a source, and to a much lesser degree, destination country for men, women, and children who are subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking; Turkmen in search of work in other countries are forced to work in textile sweatshops, construction, and domestic service; some Turkmen women and girls are sex trafficked abroad; Turkey is the primary trafficking destination, followed by Russia, India, and other countries in the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and Europe; labor trafficking occurs within Turkmenistan, particularly in the construction industry; government officials require employees in private sector institutions, soldiers, and public sector workers to pick cotton without payment under the threat of penalty, such as dismissal, reduced work hours, or salary deductions to meet government-imposed quotas for the cotton harvest tier rating: Tier 3 - Turkmenistan does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; the government approved the 2020-2022 national action plan, continued anti-trafficking awareness campaigns, worked with international organizations on combating trafficking, provided training to its diplomatic corps on human trafficking, and identified potential trafficking victims at the international airport; however, the government used forced labor in the cotton harvest and public works projects; no officials were held accountable for their role in trafficking crimes; authorities did not prosecute or convict any traffickers; no victims were identified and offered protection or assistance programs (2020) |
Source: CIA Factbook
