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The Human Rights Cause
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Loading...Stolen Brides of Kyrgyzstan
One of the upbeat musicals of my childhood was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. If I saw it now, I would probably have the same response I have to other dated cultural icons. They make me happy to live in a time when such a movie would be offensive.
The 1954 film was based on the Roman legend of the Rape of the Sabine Women. Hardly the stuff of musicals, at least for the women, but the producers turned kidnapping into a comedic romp. By the end, all the women were in love with their kidnappers.
Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t work for me as a comic premise, though it reminds me of the universality of violence against women. So I find it troubling that Kyrgyzstan’s outgoing president, Roza Otunbayeva, as one of her last acts, is having to call for an end to a practice outlawed in that country since 1994.
Young men steal women from their homes or snatch them from city streets. They take them home, and as soon as the women in their family are able to tie the bride scarf around the victim’s head, the stolen woman has “agreed” to the marriage.
Bride kidnapping can land its perpetrators in prison for up to three years, but other kinds of abductions are punished with prison time of up to ten years. That is just one sign of the persistence of a custom whose origins are lost in time but whose cultural power continues to guide the behavior of both men and women in Kyrgyzstan.
The practice has many defenders, who argue that kidnapping avoids the high cost of weddings and is important to the culture. They say economics and tradition, rather than violence, are the driving force. Kidnapping is common; prosecutions are rare.
Although the practice is less common than it used to be, around 15,000 women are still stolen into marriage each year in Kyrgyzstan. Equality Now, a London-based organization that campaigns for women’s rights, says about a quarter of the women are raped, after which they are considered no longer marriageable and no longer welcome in their families. Even if the woman is not raped, she is considered damaged goods.
Some of the women do form happy marriages after the kidnappings, but it is a practice that treats women as chattel rather than as independent human beings. Along with all other forms of violence against women, it objectifies and denigrates women.
It is time for bride kidnapping to end. Join President Roza Otunbayeva in calling for an end to this assault on women.
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Read more: bride kidnappings, cultural misogyny, misogyny, violence against women, Women's rights
Photo from Thomas Depenbusch via Flickr Creative Commons
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+ add your ownWomen ARE considered chattel in places like Kyrgyzstan, so it is no great surprise that nothing is done when a kidnapping or rape happens.
Just sad.
I do find it odd they had a female president though. Hopefully, this is just one of the many slow stumbling steps in Kyrgyzstans' journey for more and better equality for both women and all those others who need and deserve it.
I was shocked when I read the same line: "kidnapping is important to the culture", how crazy is that? How can a person seriously say that? Kidnapping is not culture, never can be. No excuses, no exceptions. Women are independent human beings and they need to decide who they want to marry or if they even want to marry at all!!
'kidnapping . . .is important to the culture.' --one of the most absurd and crazy things I've ever heard. It's unbelievable that such barbarian practice does exist somewhere in the world. I suppose one of the problems is that those stolen women are considered belittled by the society, so they have no chance for a normal life after kidnapping and have to resign themselves to such a terrible fate, without complaining. And the irresponsible behavior of their families just shows that a whole nation can be cruel and barbarian.
If stealing women *as well as killing dolphins* is OK for a culture, then, as it was said below, '&^%* your culture.'
I can't believe that one or two here are trying to justify this on "cultural" grounds.
I'd like to cite the captain of a ship who's recently been observing the massacre of dolphins in Japan when told that it's a cultural matter for the Japanese when he said "&^%* your culture".
There is no, but no, possible justification for kidnap and rape.
It seems about six people here think it's justified to kidnap women on cultural grounds. Wonder what those six morons religion is?
Thanks for the article.
This is disgusting & barbaric towards women, only chauvinist pigs that cannot court a woman properly, resort to this form of violence towards women.
Such practice should be stopped with sever and harsh punishment this is simply not acceptable look like they are living in stone age
What kind of culture is that? How can you make someone become your wife. You'd be living with someone who hates you and resists you.
Cultural may ass, its a misogynistic bunch of violence perpetuated by male chauvinist pigs.
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