Mercenary marriage – that could be an immediate assessment of people to be discussed below.  But this story is about how to marry a rich man – it is about illegal marriages, for which people pay. A young man in Turkistan paid a woman KZT 600 thousand to marry her 15-year old daughter.

Wife in Hip-Pocket

The father of the 15-year girl rescued his underaged girl. He reported to us that he did not live together with the mother of his daughter. The man is a good alimony payer and always seeks opportunities to see his girl.  He learned about his daughter’s early marriage from social networks. In the last months of the previous year, his girl was kidnapped and brought to another location.

For the man, the publication in social networks about his daughter’s early marriage was an unpleasant surprise. He immediately addressed police for help. The man openly declares that he did not agree to that marriage and reminded kidnappers of criminal responsibility for the violation of human rights. He also reminded the “would-be-husband” of the fact that sexual intercourse of those under 16 years of age was a felony.  Police are still looking for the criminal.

We do not know yet, how above story will end, but our present reality shows, that when our people exercise that “archaic” tradition, very often kidnappers and police act together in conspiracy.

Such an approach has become an often phenomenon. It does not look like a joke some Masters of ceremonies play on drunk guests of a wedding function. That is the real sex offence protected by those supporting the pseudo-tradition and fake values.

Unbreakable Union

Nobody keeps accurate track of how many underaged girls are kidnapped every year for marriage. For more “eloquent and explicit” are statistics of how many marriages with those underaged happen every year – up to 30 thousand, Heaven help Us!  23.5% of new mothers in southern provinces of Kazakhstan are underaged girls. We don’t know how many of those marriages were involuntary. And we discuss only official statistics.

Despite official attitudes, Imams proceed to sanction such marriages. As of October 2022, Zhambyl Province showed the highest number of underaged marriages – Zhuldyz Battalova, Head of Family Research Center reported to us. In 2018 Zhambyl Province was the second in that anti-rating hierarchy. Other regions famous for early marriages, as wide-spread phenomenon were Shymkent, Turkistan and Kyzylorda Provinces.

We can only guess what future expects victims of those early marriages. Obvious is the fact that there is nothing to envy here.

Born Married

Experts dealing with the rehabilitation of the rape victims report that many girls did not even realize the fact of violation of their rights. Since childhood, they were indoctrinated that their life mission was to do the chores and take care of children.  Those occupations were limits of their personal development. When the time comes, parents just give them away to families with similar values. In future, such “professional spouses” find themselves in full dependency on the discretion of the families of their husbands. Education is not even discussed.

Girls without diplomas or certificates find it hard to find employment. The suffer from lack of skills. Even if atmosphere in the family is not healthy, there are not many options for them, should they choose to leave such families. Such girls are not aware of existence of adaptation centers, while children born in those “archaic” families constitute obstacles to divorce and financial independence. That is how citizens of Kazakhstan find themselves in slavery and so do their children, who observe the violence since the very first steps in life.

In 2022, police registered 125 thousand calls from home violence victims. Out of that number, 5000 were in Shymkent. Police report that most often victims are women without education and profession.

Children and Sex Slavery

“Battering Education” and satisfaction of sexual desires – those are not only things that kidnapped victims suffer from. For the sake of not disgracing themselves in the eyes of “traditional community”, parents of such victims refuse to rescue them. That is how girls find themselves in dependence upon the discretion of people they do not know well.

Some stories are shocking – parents of a 15-year old girl sold her out for Kalym (Ransom for Bride) and in line with that suggested to “rent” her to other men.

The thing is that such marriages are not registered, which only complicates something that already is complicated. In the worst-case scenario, a young woman risks to be left outside of care, with several children and without mandatory alimony. A kidnapper may satisfy his dirty demands, grow bored with the family life and disappear.

In Turkistan Province, where together with the bride kidnapping, another tradition exists – plural marriage, one 40-year old individual managed to enter into 21 marriages. Police reported that the “plural husband” kept brining new brides to one particular Mosque and one know Mullah, who would perform all necessary rituals.

That story was brought into the public spotlight, after one of his wives gave birth to 13 children and grew tired from necessity to support them by herself – the husband did not give a single penny to help his children.

Double-Talk

Indigenous religion experts conclude that some people in provinces commit major distortions of the ancient custom.  In the past, plural marriages were practiced by rich men, and not for filth, but to support women left without defenders. Otherwise, those women were doomed to die from hunger. Nowadays, some Kazakhs practice plural marriages for prestige, not necessarily always disposing of sufficient material base to be capable to afford that.

As for the kidnapping practice, those religious experts reported that some of present-day Kazakhs rudely perverted that ancient romantic tradition. 

In Kazakh steppes, there was no kidnapping. By Kazakh tradition ,any violence in regards to a woman was a severe crime. Violators were executed.  If there was an act of kidnapping, it was a staged performance done upon mutual consent. If a young man was not rich to afford Kalym, he could kidnap a girl who loved him. 

Today times are different, but society developed some distorted and wrong notions of love and respect.