Tajikistan's missing men

Seasonal migration from Tajikistan to Russia is destroying families and leaving thousands to grow up without fathers.



Our journey begins at a wedding in southern Tajikistan, where a young bride is getting married. But what should be a day of joy, is tinged with sadness as her groom will soon have to leave the country.

Every year a million men leave Tajikistan to find work in Russia. Many find new families abroad, divorce their wives or simply never return.

The women often left destitute are forced to do what would have been men's jobs or in some cases, are so desperate, they have to put their children into institutions.

Tajikistan was once the breadbasket of the Soviet Union; today, the country's farms are worked by women.
About 100,000 men were killed in a civil war that raged through the 1990s, but the gender imbalance has worsened as more and more men leave the country to find work on Russian construction sites.