Cruel tradition: How Kazakhstan fights 'bride kidnapping'

In Kazakhstan, the penalties for so-called bride kidnapping are to be toughened up. The local parliament is working on changing laws to try to eradicate what is now considered an outdated custom.

Almost every young woman in Kazakhstan is only too well aware that she too could become a victim of bride kidnapping. If that happens to a young woman, it puts paid to any personal plans for her future.

This is what happened to Gulmira K., a nurse from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city. Gulmira, who doesn't want to use her full name in the media, was kidnapped when she was 19 years old.

"That was now almost 20 years ago," she told DW. "I was studying in Almaty and was going home from university in the evening. A car stopped, three men jumped out and grabbed me, and threw me into the backseat, then threw a blanket over me. Two of them sat next to me and held me down. After two hours, I was in a house in a village where the women immediately lay a white cloth over me, as tradition says they should. It was clear to me that I had been kidnapped so that I could be married. I couldn't get free and shortly afterwards I met my future husband, somebody I had never seen before. On that same day he took my virginity," Gulmira recounted.

It was a week before Gulmira was able to contact her parents. But the help she had hoped for was not forthcoming.

"My father only said that I was to blame for everything. He said I had disgraced the whole family and he did not want to see me again. So I became the wife of a man whose family could barely make ends meet. My parents, on the other hand, were well off," she said.

30 years of complaints

It was nine years before Gulmira was able to escape the marriage she had been forced into. "At that time, I already had two children," she said. "I met a school friend unexpectedly in a clinic and told her my story. She advised me to simply go back to Almaty with the children, which was what I did. Later, she helped me with the divorce and then with looking for a job. My ex-husband wasn't too bothered. But if bride kidnapping had been a criminal offence back then — something that is only just being discussed now — my life would have been different. I was never even able to finish my studies," she said. 

The punishment of kidnappings with a view to non-consensual marriage has actually been debated in Kazakhstan since the mid-1990s. Human rights activists have been complaining that those involved in bride kidnapping cases are never held accountable for almost 30 years. 

Article 125 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan says kidnapping is punishable by a prison sentence of between four and seven years. Article 125 also says that, should the kidnapper let the victim go free, they can escape justice. This loophole has not been given a lot of attention by the authorities and it encourages perpetrators to pretend to let the women they have abducted and forced into marriage "go free." The first glimmer of hope that this legal situation would change came in August, 2023. Kazakhstan's Human Rights Commissioner Artur Lastayev announced a draft law his office had worked on, which would make bride kidnapping a crime in its own right.

"We have asked the attorney general to draw up a separate list of crimes, ones that can be differentiated from those that article 125 applies to," Lastayev told journalists in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. "The draft [law] is based on the experience of our neighbor countries and recommendations from the United Nations."

Slow progress

Despite the fact that the attorney general agreed to support the initiative, nothing happened. Six months later, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stepped in.

"In our country there are people who are carrying out bride kidnapping under the guise of what is supposedly a national tradition," Tokayev said. "In no way can this be justified. It contradicts the ideals of a progressive society in which the dignity, rights and freedoms of every human being are absolute values."

If the president hadn't said this, it would have been very unlikely that this topic would be on the national agenda again, Murat Abenov, a member of parliament who belongs to the ruling Amanat party, told DW.

"There are likely a lot of people in our law enforcement agencies who tolerate these distortions of tradition," said Abenov, who's been pushing for tougher penalties for bride kidnapping for years.

In fact, in its present form, bride kidnapping — which is widespread in the south and west of the country and occasionally also happens in the capital Astana and other cities such as Almaty — didn't historically exist in this country, Abenov explained.

"In the Middle Ages, the kidnapping of women was only permitted during military operations, as trophies," he continued. "The kidnapping of girls from non-warring families was considered a very serious crime, punishable by death."

Most cases never make it to court

Human Rights Commissioner Lastayev wants to add an extra article — Article 125-1 — to the criminal code. This would say that kidnapping for the purpose of enforced marriage is punishable by a prison sentence of up to three years.

"If the victim is under-age, then the sentence goes up to five years. If the kidnapping leads to severe consequences for the victim, then the sentence goes up to 10 years," Abenov explained. Rape would be punished as a separate crime. 

Abenov is convinced that if the law was to be introduced, the number of reports of bride kidnapping would rise substantially.

"In the past three years, there have been 214 official cases but I know there were many more attempts to file cases. Only 10 cases were brought before a judge. All the others — that's 93% — were dropped for lack of evidence," he said. 

The state has also failed to educate people about the law, complains lawyer and human rights activist Khalida Azhigulova. This is especially true for regions where bride kidnapping happens.

"Our young people don't learn enough about human rights, not at schools or at universities," she told DW. "They don't know enough about marriage or family law. Since 2011, a marriage may only be concluded after the free and unconditional consent of both partners to it."

Azhigulova supports Abenov's working group, which is working on tougher laws for bride kidnapping. But she also has high hopes for Kazakhstan's young people, who are increasingly rejecting this custom.

This story was originally published in Russian.