Ala kachuu

Ala kachuu (Kyrgyz: ала качуу) is a form of bride kidnapping still practised in Kyrgyzstan.[1] The term can apply to a variety of actions, ranging from a consensual elopement to a non-consensual kidnapping,[2] and to what extent it actually happens is controversial. Some sources suggest that currently at least a third of Kyrgyzstan's brides are taken against their will.[3]

Main article: bride kidnapping
A woman (first from right) and four men on horses preparing to "kidnap" her. Kyrgyz steppe, between 1871 and 1872

Kyz ala kachuu (Kyrgyz: кыз ала качуу) means "to take a young woman and run away". The typical non-consensual variety involves the young man abducting a woman[4] either by force or by guile, often accompanied by friends or male relatives. They take her to his family home, where she is kept in a room until the man's female relatives convince her to put on the scarf of a married woman as a sign of acceptance. Sometimes, if the woman resists the persuasion and maintains her wish to return home, her relatives try to convince her to agree to the marriage.

The practice was suppressed during the Soviet period, but, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ala kachuu began to resurface. There are conflicting reports on whether it continues in the original way or not. Some sources state that the practice was originally a form of elopement, not a bride theft. Sometimes the kidnapping may be just a wedding formality, where the woman comes along willingly. Some people even consider it an honour to be kidnapped because it demonstrates that the woman is worthy of being a wife.[5]

Although bride-kidnapping is illegal in Kyrgyzstan, the government has been accused of not taking proper steps to protect women from this practice.[6][7]

History

The history of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan is under dispute. The Russian Empire and later USSR colonizing powers made the ancient practice of the nomads illegal, and so with the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of the Central Asian nations, many have revived old customs as a way of asserting cultural identity.[8] Rejecting a kidnapping is often culturally unacceptable for women, and perceived as a rejection of the Kyrgyz cultural identity.[9] The practice is also associated with asserting masculinity.[10] Recent studies challenge the claims that bride kidnapping used to be prevalent. According to Kyrgyz historians, and Fulbright scholar Russell Kleinbach, whereas kidnappings were rare until Soviet times, the bride kidnapping tradition has dramatically increased in the 20th century.[11] The rise in bride kidnappings may be connected with difficulty in paying the required bride price (kalym).[12]

Prevalence

A major issue is of course the question how often this happens. A recent victimization survey in Kyrgyzstan (2015) included the crime of kidnapping of young women for marriage. 14% of married women answered that they were kidnapped at the time and that two thirds of these cases were consensual, the woman knew the man and had agreed with it up front. This means that about 5% of current marriages in Kyrgyzstan are cases of 'Ala Kachuu'.[13] Using the same methodology, a 2018 study in Kazakhstan resulted in an estimated 1-1.5% of current marriages in Kazakhstan are the result of 'Ala Kachuu'.[14]

Studies by researcher Russell Kleinbach have found much larger numbers, namely that approximately half of all Kyrgyz marriages include bride kidnapping; of those kidnappings, two thirds are non-consensual.[15]

Bride-money

According to a 1992 study, the bride-money for Dungan brides fluctuated between 240 and 400 rubles. Poor Dungans find Kirghiz brides, or marry Tatar or Sart women. Dungans also secretly abduct Kirghiz girls as brides.[16]

Legality

Despite its illegality,[17] 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.[18]

The matter is somewhat confused by the local use of the term "bride kidnap" to reflect practices along a continuum, from forcible abduction and rape (and then, almost unavoidably, marriage), to something akin to an elopement arranged between the two young people, to which both sets of parents have to consent after the fact.

Although the practice is illegal in Kyrgyzstan, bride kidnappers are rarely prosecuted. This reluctance to enforce the code is in part caused by the pluralistic legal system in Kyrgyszstan where many villages are de facto ruled by councils of elders and aqsaqal courts following customary law, away from the eyes of the state legal system.[19] Aqsaqal courts, tasked with adjudicating family law, property and torts, often fail to take bride kidnapping seriously. In many cases, aqsaqal members are invited to the kidnapped bride's wedding and encourage the family of the bride to accept the marriage.[20]

Examples

In one model of bride kidnapping present in Kyrgyzstan, the young man decides he wishes to marry and asks his parents to pick him out a suitable bride, or is told by his parents that it is time he settled down and that they have found someone of the right background and attributes. (In this sense, it may be similar to an arranged marriage, although the arranging is all on one side.) The prospective groom and his male relatives or friends or both abduct the girl (in the old nomadic days, on horseback; now often by car) and take her to the family home. Once there, the man's relatives may attempt to convince the woman to accept the marriage, and to place a white wedding scarf (jooluk) on her head to symbolize her agreement.[21] They may do this by pointing out the advantages of the union, such as the wealth of their smallholding, to show her what she would gain by joining their family. Families may use force or threaten to curse the woman if she leaves, an effective threat in a superstitious country.[22] Some families will keep the girl hostage for several days to break her will. Others will let her go if she remains defiant; she may, for example, refuse to sit down or to eat, as a sign that she is refusing the proffered hospitality. During this period, the groom typically does not see the bride until she has agreed to marry or at least has agreed to stay. The kidnapped woman's family may also become involved, either urging the woman to stay (particularly if the marriage is believed socially acceptable or advantageous for the prospective bride and her family), or opposing the marriage on various grounds and helping to liberate the woman.[23]

In other models of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan and other areas of Central Asia, the woman may be a complete stranger to the man prior to the abduction.[24] Sometimes the groom and his family, rather than selecting a particular young woman to kidnap, decide on a household; that way they can still kidnap one of the sisters if the woman they desire is not home.[25] As in other societies, often the men who resort to bride kidnapping are socially undesirable for a variety of reasons; they may be more likely to be violent, have a criminal history, or to be substance abusers.[26]

The bride kidnapping process sometimes includes rape.[27] Even when sex does not take place, once a woman has been kept overnight, even for a single night, her virginity is put in doubt. With her honor disgraced, she will have very few other options for marriage. Thus, after one night of capture, the woman is culturally compelled to marry the man.[22] Such immense social stigma is attached to a refusal to marry after a kidnap that the kidnapped woman usually feels that she has no choice but to agree, and some of those who refuse even commit suicide after the kidnapping.[28]

According to the United States Embassy, two American women were bride-kidnapped in rural Kyrgyzstan in 2007.[29] As soon as the boys discovered that the women were not Kyrgyzs but foreign (American with a Central Asian appearance) they were returned to the place they were taken from.

See also

References
  1. Noriko Hayahi (November 4, 2013). "Grab and Run: Kyrgyzstan's Bride Kidnappings". newsweek.com.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-01-31. Retrieved 2013-09-11.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. Smith, Craig S. (April 30, 2005). "Abduction, Often Violent, a Kyrgyz Wedding Rite". The New York Times.
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2008-07-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-05-10. Retrieved 2008-07-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. Human Rights Watch, Reconciled to Violence: State Failure to Stop Domestic Abuse and Abduction of Women in Kyrgyzstan, pp. 87-88, http://hrw.org/reports/2006/kyrgyzstan0906/kyrgyzstan0906webwcover.pdf; Handrahan, pp. 212-213.
  9. Hanrahan, p. 222.
  10. International Human Rights Law and Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav012400.shtml Archived 2016-06-17 at the Wayback Machine; Handrahan, p. 222.
  11. Russ Kleinbach & Lilly Salimjanova, Kyz ala kachuu and adat: Non-consensual bride kidnapping and tradition in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian Survey, (June 2007) 26:2, 217 - 233, at 230, available at "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-08-20. Retrieved 2008-10-18.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
  12. Aijan Rakhimdinova, Kyrgyz Bride Price Controversy, Institute of War and Peace Reporting, Dec. 22, 2005, http://www.iwpr.net/?p=wpr&s=f&o=258820&apc_state=henpwpr
  13. Gorby, Kyrgyzstan Public Safety Survey, Civil Union “For Reforms and Results” (2015) page 30-31 http://wp.unil.ch/icvs/news/information-and-data-from-kyrgyzstan/
  14. Van Dijk, J.J.M., Van Kesteren, J.N., Trochev, A. & Slade, G. (2018 final draft) Criminal Victimization in Kazakhstan in an international perspective; new findings from the International Crime Victims Survey. NI-CO, Astana, Belfast. https://sites.google.com/view/icvs-crime/homepage/recentadditions/kazakhstan%5B%5D
  15. Kleinbach & Salimjanova, Kyz ala kachuu and adat: Non-consensual bride kidnapping and tradition in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian Survey, (June 2007) 26:2, 217 - 233.
  16. Asian Folklore Institute, Society for Asian Folklore, Nanzan Daigaku. Jinruigaku Kenkyūjo, Nanzan Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo (1992). Asian folklore studies, Volume 51. Nanzan University Institute of Anthropology. p. 256. Retrieved 2010-06-28.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  17. Bride kidnapping is criminalized in Article 155 of the Criminal code. See Russ Kleinbach & Lilly Salimjanova, Kyz ala kachuu and adat: Non-consensual bride kidnapping and tradition in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian Survey, (June 2007) 26:2, 217 - 233, available at "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-08-20. Retrieved 2008-10-18.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
  18. United States State Department, Kyrgyz Republic: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2007, March 11, 2008.
  19. See Judith Beyer, Kyrgyz Aksakal Courts: Pluralistic Accounts of History, Journal of Legal Pluralism, 2006; Handrahan, pp. 212-213.
  20. Human Rights Watch, Reconciled to Violence, p. 106
  21. PBS, Kyrgyzstan: The Kidnapped Bride, https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/kyrgyzstan/thestory.html; Handrahan, Lori, Hunting for Women, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 6:2,(2004) pp. 207 — 233, at 209; Alex Rodriguez, Kidnapping a Bride Practice Embraced in Kyrgyzstan, Augusta Chronicle, July 24, 2005.
  22. Craig S. Smith, Abduction, Often Violent, a Kyrgyz Wedding Rite, N.Y. Times, April 30, 2005.
  23. Human Rights Watch, Reconciled to Violence: State Failure to Stop Domestic Abuse and Abduction of Women in Kyrgyzstan, p. 86, http://hrw.org/reports/2006/kyrgyzstan0906/kyrgyzstan0906webwcover.pdf
  24. Human Rights Watch, Reconciled to Violence: State Failure to Stop Domestic Abuse and Abduction of Women in Kyrgyzstan, p. 91, http://hrw.org/reports/2006/kyrgyzstan0906/kyrgyzstan0906webwcover.pdf; Craig S. Smith, Abduction, Often Violent, a Kyrgyz Wedding Rite, N.Y. Times, April 30, 2005.
  25. Luong, Pauline Jones. The transformation of Central Asia : states and societies from Soviet rule to independence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.
  26. See Rodriguez, Kidnapping a Bride Practice Embraced in Kyrgyzstan.
  27. Human Rights Watch, Reconciled to Violence: State Failure to Stop Domestic Abuse and Abduction of Women in Kyrgyzstan
  28. Burulai Pusurmankulova, Bride Kidnapping: Benign Custom Or Savage Tradition?, June 15, 2004, Voice Of Freedom Initiative Of The Human Rights Working Group, "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-06-23. Retrieved 2007-02-25.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  29. Warden Message, United States Embassy, Kyrgyzstan, http://bishkek.usembassy.gov/december_10_2007.html Archived 2010-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
Bibliography
  • Kleinbach, Russell; Ablezova, Mehrigiul; Aitieva, Medina (2005). "Kidnapping for marriage (ala kachuu) in a Kyrgyz village". Central Asian Survey. 24 (2): 191. doi:10.1080/02634930500155138. S2CID 144169034..
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