Kyrgyzstan

Bordering Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China, Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous and landlocked central Asian country. The political situation since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 has been unstable, with a succession of popular overthrows of governments perceived as autocratic or corrupt. The most recent of these occurred in 2010, alongside outbreaks of armed conflicts between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks in the south of the country, which incurred widespread reports of human rights abuses. Other major issues in Kyrgyzstan include attacks on and arrests of journalists and human rights defenders, human trafficking and the use of child labour.