Stolen brides of Kazakhstan: the fightback

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1:33Khalida Azhigulova:Welcome to the Crossing Continents podcast. I'm Monica Whitlock. One lady was trying to stop a taxi in the street to take her home from work and there was a man who liked her. They were colleagues. He saw her. Some of his friends had a car and he invited her. oh please sit in the car and she didn't feel any threats from him and she sat in the car but then they didn't take her to the place where she wanted and the guy just told her oh now I will marry you and I'm taking you to my house. She was forced to sit in the middle between two other men who were holding her so that she would not escape. When the car was standing at some traffic light she opened the door she ran out she almost escaped but then she was pulled back into the car and then what happened next another driver who was just driving behind that car who saw that he realized that something was wrong you know and he started following that car and he was signaling telling them to stop he called the police he said that you know there is a woman in the car in front of me and and I think the woman needs help.

2:49Police took over, they drove fast, and they stopped the car, and they released her. The thing is, no one was punished, because that guy who kidnapped her, he actually said, no, no, it was just a joke. And because they didn't commit any violence, the police did not even, they actually had to close the case, and that's it.

3:15Khalida Azhigulova:Almaty, the biggest city in Kazakhstan is a modern metropolis of skyscrapers, shops and busy highways yet in plain sight, just outside the city a group of men got together to apparently kidnap a young woman in order to marry her to one of them and the case didn't even come to court but things might be starting to change In September, Kazakhstan introduced a law making it a criminal offence to force a woman or girl into marriage, including through kidnapping her and making her marry her abductor. My name is Halida Ajigulova. I'm a barrister and a human rights lawyer. So this is a very progressive law.

3:57Human rights lawyers and human rights activists in Kazakhstan, they have been advocating and fighting for criminalisation of this violation of human rights. for more than 20 years. You know, according to some unofficial data, thousands of cases may take place in Kazakhstan a year. The problem is that without official punishment for forced marriages, we don't have any official statistics. Mostly it takes place in the southern region of the country, and mostly it takes place in villages and rural areas. Unfortunately, such practice takes place.

4:34Khalida Azhigulova:For Crossing Continents, I'm in Kazakhstan with my colleague Rose Kudabaeva, meeting some of those thousands of Kazakh women who've been abducted. Here they call it stolen. We've been asking them, what happens if you're stolen? How come stealing's been allowed to flourish? Or what are those who oppose it up against? Rose is Kazakh, and it's her voice you'll hear in most of our conversations. Our journey began in the far south of this immense country, in a village close to the border with Uzbekistan.

5:24Everything on this table is made by me, baked, cooked. That's homemade kurt. That's Kazakh cheese, so the very dry cheese. That's freshly baked bread. We have cows and we make butter from our own milk. So it's freshly made butter. Please, please eat.

5:50Khalida Azhigulova:Clara is full of energy. She churns butter, grinds millet, bakes bread, ferments horse's milk and runs a small holding. She has a day job as a nurse and a side hustle baking pies for lunch at the village school. She's warm and confident. Her five sons are all champion wrestlers. The wall is hung with their medals. Life, she says, is good. But it wasn't always so. Clara arrived in the village as a girl almost 30 years ago.

6:24I came here for holidays to visit relatives because my mom comes from here. And someone looked at me, someone liked me, and he stole me. So when I came here, my relatives, close relatives, wives of my brothers, they told me, let's go and visit someone. So I went with them to someone's place, and that's it. That was the house of the guy who liked me. and then I just couldn't leave because I was sort of already stolen. I was 16. I knew nothing about him and my future husband was 11 years older than me.

7:06Khalida Azhigulova:Clara was a high-spirited schoolgirl, strong and fast. Her friends say she didn't let anyone push her around. But this time, she couldn't run away. the very fact of crossing the threshold of a stranger's home meant that she could now be claimed as a bride. To leave, she says, would have brought shame on her and her family.

7:36We were brought up as children to do what our parents told us. And all parents at that time, they said, if you're stolen, if you cross their threshold, you cannot come back. Why did you get hurt? I didn't get hurt. I got hurt. I got hurt. I didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt. Did you get hurt? Yes. I didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt. I cried at first. I was a child, 16 years old. And I said, I want to leave. But they laughed at me. They said, it's done. You will stay here. You will marry him. You cannot go back now. Because you crossed that threshold. Because you crossed that threshold.

8:23Yes, I crossed that threshold. I crossed that threshold. I didn't have any time. I crossed that threshold. Yes, I crossed the threshold and they told me I cannot cross it back. And then I stayed.

8:39Khalida Azhigulova:What did your parents think about that?

8:51My parents couldn't do anything because it's a tradition. When the young girl crosses a threshold, it's done, she cannot go back home. My mother was very cross. She was against it. usually when young men's family when they steal a girl afterwards they send two elders to ask forgiveness and these two people they arrived to my parents place and my mom told them you took my baby she's a child she was at school she needs to study but then my mom's relatives they've told her it'll be a great shame. Just agree.

9:35Khalida Azhigulova:And after some time, my mum, she had to agree. The man's family paid a bride price, one cow and 30 ,000 kazakhtenge. That's about 90 pounds, a good amount in the hungry 1990s. Clara's parents used it to buy clothes and bedding for her. They said, he's from a good family, neither blind nor lame, and he seems to be sound. And with those words, they left her. Clara thanks God that her new family treated her well and she grew, eventually, into happiness. She was, she says, very lucky.

10:15Khalida Azhigulova:Dinara was a student when she was stolen while out walking in 2019. She's in her mid-twenties now with two wriggling toddlers and a baby, all girls. If you don't mind, could you tell us how come you were stolen? What happened to you?

10:39They stole me in my own village. I was 19, almost 20. And I was going to the shop, and after the shop I was going to my relative. so I'd noticed the car going around without plate, without any numbers. On the way to my relative, I realized that this car was following me. It was the place where there were no houses and no one was around, nobody. So that was the place where they snatched me. I never saw this man before. They forced me into the car and just took me away from the street.

11:20Khalida Azhigulova:Her kidnapper and his friends drove her to his home, where his whole family was ready waiting. They were complete strangers to Dinara.

11:39First of all, they told me to change my clothes, all of it. They gave me robes with leggings and the headscarf. and underwear and for some time I was refusing to change my clothes but then at the end I did it I've changed my clothes but then my relatives arrived my brothers with their wives then elderly people came and elderly people from both sides met and they forced me to sign the paper that I arrived there with my own will.

12:14Khalida Azhigulova:The white headscarf is a symbol of possession by the man and his wider family. The headscarf means she was a married woman. She felt pressure not only from his side, but also from her own side. And after this additional pressure from the elders, she just realised she couldn't go home. It must have been a just terrible shock. I was crying, I was in shock. I was terrified. I still have this trauma inside of me. But at the end, I've decided to stay because of this shame. And I lived with this man for five years. I had three daughters. But at the end, he just told me, go away, get away. He just said, get out.

13:15Khalida Azhigulova:Dinara had nowhere to go. She ended up with her three little girls in one of the few women's refuges, which is where we met. It's a community of women and children funded by local well-wishers. On the day we visited, someone had just dropped off a sack of pears and one of potatoes as a gift. About half the women living here were stolen, most when they were very young. Under the new law, the minimum penalty for bride kidnapping is two years in prison, with a maximum of ten. But who actually is the kidnapper? We're not just talking about the actions of a lone individual man, are we? We're talking about a whole community of relationships.

13:56Forced marriage, it includes punishment for any person, including the parents and relatives of a girl, of a woman, who force her to get married. Lawyer Khalida Ajigolova. And also forced marriage includes the family of a kidnapper. they are forcing her to agree to this kidnapping, to agree to her fate, to agree to marry her kidnapper. And in my view, they're equally responsible. They're equally liable, criminally liable. Because they act not as a family, but as a gang, as a criminal gang. And they all should be punished, in my view. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season.

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15:41I was stolen when I was 17.

15:45Khalida Azhigulova:This is Kubala's story.

15:57Because I was working as a secretary in local administration, I had to deal with all sorts of papers, like taxes, home ownership, lots and lots of different papers. They told me that I need to take some papers somewhere. I went to this house and as soon as I crossed the threshold, the relatives of the man who wanted to steal me, they put their headscarf on my head and the grandmother of this man, she was lying down on the threshold telling me, don't step over me, don't leave. Because for Kazakhs, it's like a very shameful thing to step over someone, and I couldn't step over her.

16:45Khalida Azhigulova:So, Rose, why didn't Gubbala just step over the grandmother and walk out of the house? It's absolute taboo. You cannot do it because you can bring really bad luck on yourself. So she's scared, she's scared of the shame, she's scared of her own relatives' reaction.

17:15The whole day, for 24 hours, I was trying to resist. I told them, no, I won't agree, I won't marry him. and for the cold day they were pressing me, his relatives, mostly women, and after a day I agreed because of all this pressure. They cover your head first with a headscarf and when they open your face, that's it, you are virtually married. They just sent someone to my parents' house and told them, we stole your daughter. And my parents couldn't do anything.

17:53Khalida Azhigulova:How did they react?

18:04My father, he said, I want my daughter to be happy. That's my only wish. And they said, don't worry, she will be happy.

18:14Khalida Azhigulova:And how was life for you then? You were married? You must have been in shock?

18:31After two days, my husband started to give me instructions what to do and what not to do. Orders. I couldn't do anything without his agreement. Can I go to the toilet? Can I do this? Can I do that? And one of the first things he told me, don't communicate with the neighbors.

18:53Khalida Azhigulova:Gubala's life became one of isolation and abject drudgery, cooking and cleaning for the man and his parents. The man, she says, turned out to be extremely violent and his parents turned a blind eye. Of her ten pregnancies, Gubala lost three after terrible assaults. Halida, you are a lawyer. From your point of view, is there a direct link between bride stealing and domestic violence? Absolutely, there is a direct link in such families. Her husband, he treated her as some thing, which he decided to steal, because usually we steal things. And fortunately, in this unequal marriage, there is quite a high occurrence of domestic violence.

19:40Khalida Azhigulova:But it's lack of agency from day one, isn't it? Absolutely, because a woman in this marriage doesn't have any agency, yeah.

19:56On the 20th year of my marriage, one day I woke up, I prayed, and then I had to put the rubbish into the rubbish bin, which was across the road. So just a few steps out of the house and then back immediately. And he started to shout, where have you been? And he started to beat me up, telling why you did go out without my permission. And usually when he beat you up, he used whatever he had around. It could be a plastic bottle full of water.

20:37Khalida Azhigulova:It could be axe. Gorbola's children found their mother lying helpless when they got back from school. and they managed to call an ambulance. The doctors said that she was lucky to be alive. Gulbala spent four months in hospital undergoing reconstructive internal surgery. The man and his family are still at large. Meanwhile, in parts of the Caucasus, you have the same sorts of phenomenon, don't you? Chechnya is a problem. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan. That was a very huge problem in their country. Many girls they suffered and there were many cases of suicide or even murder of a bride during kidnapping.

21:21There were two very, very grave incidents when girls were kidnapped. The girls resisted. They were fighting with their kidnappers. In one case, the girl was killed, murdered. In another case, the girl was kidnapped and raped and then eventually she was also murdered by her kidnapper. Of course there was an outcry in society and people started demanding changes and so on. And I think that this is a tragedy that sometimes our members of parliament or the governments, they don't pay sufficient attention to prevent such incidents, but they take actions only after a woman or a girl died.