Stolen brides of Kazakhstan: the fightback

In plain sight, in a modern city, a colleague offers to drive you home after work. How would you respond? One woman in Kazakhstan accepted the lift only to find herself kidnapped or ‘stolen’ as a bride. She got away, rescued by the police, but for many Kazakh women kidnap leads to marriage.

Human Rights lawyer Khalida Azhigulova reckons that thousands of women are forced into marriage each year in Kazakhstan, including many who are abducted. Some women even find that a wedding has already been arranged by the time a kidnapper gets her home. Now, after 20 years of campaigning by Khalida and other activists, legislators have passed a law making forced marriage a crime.

Monica Whitlock and Roza Kudabayeva travel to Kazakhstan to meet women who’ve been kidnapped, and hearing about the intense pressures that make them feel obliged to marry their abductors. Women like Gulbala who endured 20 years of marriage with her kidnapper and is now making a new life for herself. And Klara who is crystal clear that it’s time for a change. All her children will marry in the proper way, she says, because no one should be forced into marriage.

Bride stealing is a problem not only in Kazakhstan, but in many other parts of Central Asia and the Caucasus. It’s often defended as ‘tradition’ rooted in the Kazakh’s nomadic past. Nonsense, says Khalida. ‘Kazakh girls in the nomadic community were raised as warriors. They were taught to ride a horse, how to gallop, how to use arms and how to fight. She would not let anyone kidnap her.’

Produced by Monica Whitlock and Rose Kudabayeva.
Sound engineer: James Beard
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison
Series editor: Penny Murphy

(Image: Klara and her new daughter-in-law Adina support the new law. Credit Monica Whitlock/BBC)