Mumin Ahmadi is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Tajik Service.
Once a go-to town for the young and progressive, the southern Tajik town of Norak was introduced to the world as a terrorist hotbed following a midsummer attack on foreign cyclists.
Tajik authorities are preparing to order migrant laborers to have their blood tested upon their return, and that means no unsafe sex until the results are in.
Top Tajik officials have been warned that they can get in trouble if their wives don't take part in volunteer work.
Tajikistan considers breaking with decades of discrimination against women by punishing men on both sides of the illegal sex trade -- prostitutes and clients.
A quarter-century after the demise of the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Tajiks, whose ancestors fled their homes into Afghanistan nearly 90 years ago, have yet to return to their homeland and be reunited with their families.
