“A happy marriage begins with crying”: Women are abducted, raped and forced into marriage

Aisuluu was returning home after an afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy. “It was 5 o’clock on Saturday afternoon. I had a paper bag full of food. “My aunt always made it on the weekends,” he says.

“A car with four men inside is coming from the opposite direction towards me. And suddenly, he turns and within seconds he comes next to me. One of the men in the back seat comes out and pushes me into the car. My food falls on the sidewalk. I scream, I cry, but there is nothing I can do “.

The man who kidnapped her would soon become her husband. In Wedding, Aisuluu discovered that she was not even the woman he intended to kidnap to marry her. But in a hurry to return home with a bride and after wandering the streets all afternoon, the man decided to reconcile with the first “good-looking girl” he saw.

It was 1996 and Aisuluu was a teenager. Today she has four children with the kidnapper and later her husband, with whom she is still married, according to the British Guardian.

Known as ala kachuu, the brutal practice of abducting women for marriage has its roots in medieval times, but persists to this day. It has been banned in Kyrgyzstan for a decade and the law was tightened in 2013 with sentences of up to 10 years in prison for abducting a woman to force her to marry (previously punishable by a $ 25 fine).

The new law, however, has not limited this shocking practice and prosecutions are rare. However, according to the human rights group Restless Beings, “this is a significant development as previously the punishment for stealing animals was more severe than that for ala kachuu.”

“A happy wedding begins with crying,” says a proverb in Kyrgyzstan, and these tears of rage and terror at the beginning of the wedding for these brides.

Ala kachuu is practiced in all Central Asian countries, but is particularly prevalent in the rural areas of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, a nation of 6 million predominantly Muslims. During Soviet rule, the custom was rare and parents were the ones who usually arranged weddings.

Data from the Women Support Center, an organization that fights for gender equality in the country, show that at least 12,000 weddings take place and take place each year against the will of the bride. The figures are from 2011 and it is believed that the number is even higher.

Men abduct women, they say, to prove their manhood, to avoid courtship (considered a tedious waste of time) and to save the payment of kalym, which can cost the groom up to $ 4,000 in cash and animals. .

After ala kachuu, which in some cases can be a “consensus” abduction For couples who want to speed up their marriage process, the brides are transported to the future husband’s house. The in-laws welcome the woman and force her to wear jooluk, a white shawl that indicates submission to the new family. The wedding follows. About 80% of abducted women accept their fate, often on the advice of their parents.

It is estimated that 2,000 women are in a hurry by their future spouses every year and are therefore doomed to marry them, because returning to their family is a shame. Brides who pop it face the risk of more violence, even death.

There are efforts today against this brutal practice. Tatyana Zelenskaya, who works with the human rights organization Open Line Foundation, which supports abduction victims by providing legal advice, has created designs and graphics for Spring in Bishkek, a video game for smartphones that aims to convince young people people that kidnapping is not a tradition but a crime. In just six months, the app has been downloaded more than 130,000 times, which is considered an incredible success.