Kyrgyzstan’s bride stealing tradition destroys dreams and ruins lives

The tradition of bride stealing, sadly, is still alive and well in Kyrgyzstan. In fact, there has been a resurgence since the fall of communism, and it’s quite common in Kyrgyzstan, especially outside the northern urban areas. 

My colleague and I met Leda (not her real name), one of its victims. She’s only 24, a year younger than me, but she has already had to fight her way out of this form of slavery to a family she was forced to marry into.  

The daughter of a Communist Party member, she was clever and ambitious, but before she could apply to university she was kidnapped by a young man from the southern city of Jalal-Abad. As she was seen as ‘tarnished’ for spending the night at his home, she was then forced to marry him.

Hopes and dreams destroyed

I thought how horrible it must be to be forced into marriage a man you didn’t love or even like under the tradition of bride stealing. But for young women like Leda, who are stolen, there is the equal tragedy of seeing all their dreams and ambitions for their career ruined. 

Most are treated like unpaid servants and Leda was no exception. Not only did she find herself forced to cook and clean for her husband’s extended family, her mother-in-law also sent her out to work in a kiosk. 

“My family are doctors and nomenklatura!” she protested. “My parents would be so shamed if they saw me working in a kiosk. They would not allow it!”

After their two sons were born, her husband started staying out all night and coming home reeking of drink. Meanwhile she was working from dawn to midnight in the kiosk. 

Domestic violence

He came by one day and asked for money to go out with his friends. When she refused to give him the 200 som she was keeping to buy more stock from the bazaar, he hit her and took it anyway. 

Leda had befriended an older woman who worked in the kiosk next to hers. One day this woman said: “I have to show you something.” She took Leda to a nearby kiosk run by a young Russian woman who always wore short skirts and heavy makeup. Leda’s husband was sitting in the kiosk with his arm around the woman’s shoulders. 

The last straw was when he came home one night. “He was acting drunk, but he had not been drinking,” says Leda. “It was narcotica.”

Escape to Bishkek

Leda left her husband and his family and moved to Bishkek with her two children. It was too late to realise her dream of starting a tourism company with her father; he had died some years before. But she’s still ambitious. 

“I am studying the law and when that is finished I will get a job. My mother-in-law tells my sons that I am an evil woman and a bad mother. But I am more good for them if I work and am a success.”