"Bride Kidnapping - Illegal in Kyrgyzstan"
WHEN LAWS CHANGE
PEOPLE SOMETIMES
FOLLOW
ALONG
SLOWLY
LAMb's Response to Bride Kidnapping in Central Asia?
EDUCATION
We are committed to education and training to help those serving vulnerable, exploited and abused children and youth. Trauma-informed training is a major focus at this time in the journey of LAMb International. Our team members globally are all working tirelessly to make a difference.
In Kyrgyzstan - we started with bringing little girls who were rescued from abuse, abandonment and more - to our Dayspring program - now continuing with them through adulthood as permanence and family take root. We added a transition program.
We have our older youth program - the transition program - now serving orphans who graduate from the orphanage system and need help with Life Skills, Education and Emotional and Physical support and care. We offer Life Skill training to three different orphanages, Education opportunities and housing. Our mentoring program continues to evolve and develop in Kyrgyzstan.
We are small in comparison to some ministry outreach programs - yet we still work in 32 different countries and have trainers equipped and serving across the globe.
IN KYRGYZSTAN - OUR PRIMARY FOCUS - we are dedicated to the issues that have caused such grief to many of the young women we work with - BRIDE KIDNAPPING.
Ruby's sister, Sondra, has dedicated herself to helping educate youth about this illegal practice in Kyrgystan - teaching youth respect of persons both male and female, love for their country, how to be safe and how to help others be safe.
As mindsets change - so does a Nation. Kyrygzstan is developing beyond past harms and is moving to be a nation that respects women and children. Change is difficult - but change can be good. This change is good. No one person can do it all - but together we can be a loud voice for positive change. All children and youth deserve Safety, Permanency and Well-Being - and the END TO BRIDE KIDNAPPING.
THE REALITY....
Bride kidnapping, also known as bridenapping, marriage
by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice in which a
man abducts the woman he wishes to marry. Bride kidnapping has been
practiced around the world and throughout history. It continues to occur in
countries in Central Asia.
Despite the illegality, in many primarily rural areas, bride kidnapping, known as ala
kachuu (to take and flee), is an accepted and common way of taking a
wife. A recent victimization survey in Kyrgyzstan (2015) included the
crime of kidnapping of young women for marriage.
Fourteen
percent of married women answered that they were kidnapped at the time and that
two-thirds of these cases were said to be consensual, the woman knew the man
and had agreed with it upfront. This means that about five percent of the current
marriages in Kyrgyzstan are cases of 'Ala Kachuu' – although there is much
controversy to this data.
There is
another source that mentions much higher numbers. Approximately half of all
Kyrgyz marriages include bride kidnapping; of those kidnappings, two-thirds are
non-consensual. Research by non-governmental organizations give estimates from
a low of 40% to between 68 and 75 percent of all
marriages in Kyrgyzstan involved bride kidnapping. Most significantly is the impact these
marriages have on the culture and young women being forced into the marriage.
Bride
kidnappings that involve rape do so to psychologically force the would-be
bride to accept her kidnapper and his family’s pressure to marry him, since if
she then refuses she would never be considered marriageable again.
Reports say
there are nearly 12,000 bride kidnappings in Kyrgyzstan yearly. Although the practice is illegal in
Kyrgyzstan, bride kidnappers are rarely prosecuted. In most nations,
bride kidnapping is considered a sex crime rather than a valid form
of marriage.
