Bride Theft Rampant in
By Gulo Kokhodze and Tamuna Uchidze
in Akhaltsikhe
(CRS No. 344, 15-June-06)
The ancient tradition of
bride-stealing undergoes a revival despite tougher legislation and efforts by
women’s rights groups.
Maia was kidnapped by her future
husband three times. She managed to escape twice, but the third time she just
gave up and accepted her fate.
Now, she says, “Gia is a remarkable
husband. I’m happy to live with such a man.” This is despite the fact that Gia
and his friends forcibly abducted her, leaving her no option but to marry
him.
The couple now have three children.
Everybody knows Maia in her home village in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of
southern
The story of how Maia began her
marriage 14 years ago is typical of what many people in Samtskhe-Javakheti, a
region with a mixed Georgian and Armenian population, see as accepted tradition.
The practice of “bride kidnapping” has seen a resurgence in the
Local women’s groups say bride theft
is a backward, deeply ingrained form of male violence, and they are starting to
try to highlight the issue and help protect women from being “stolen”.
Activists in Samtskhe-Javakheti say
it is difficult to give any hard statistics on how widespread the custom is, but
they believe hundreds of women in this region are forced to marry against their
will every year.
Women say that very few take their
complaints to the police because, once they have been kidnapped, great social
stigma attaches to the suspicion of lost virginity.
Maia described how Gia – whom she
knew – made repeated attempts to abduct her.
“I met Gia when I was in ninth
grade,” she recalled. “After finishing school, I continued my education at a
theological college. Gia often called on me at the convent. I suspected I was
more than just a friend for him. But at the time I was in love with another
guy.”
Gia’s friends helped him with all
three attempts to abduct Maia. The first time, she said, “They tricked me into
getting into their car. I was very frightened. I cried and begged them to turn
the car around. Seeing that my tears and entreaties produced no effect, I opened
the door, stuck my legs out and said I’d jump out. Passing cars slowed down.
Everybody was looking at us.”
Gia relented and let her go, but on
a subsequent occasion his friends chased her down a muddy slope before some
bystanders intervened and took her into a local church. “I was dirty all over,
my clothes were torn. In tears I approached the icon of the Savior, kneeled
before it and whispered, ‘Lord, I don’t love him, but let it be the way You want
it to be’,” she said.
The third time around, she said,
“Someone put his hand over my mouth to stop me from crying out. I managed to run
away, but it was dark outside and I fell down into a ditch, hurting my back. I
still have the scar.”
“A terrible feeling seized me after
the abduction,” continued Maia. “Even today, I cannot help shivering as I recall
it. I didn’t know what to do. Everybody knew that I’d been abducted. I was
thinking about my brothers. I thought that if I left, people would say I wasn’t
a virgin.
“That is why I decided to
stay.”
Some locals estimate half of all
marriages involve the bride being kidnapped. In many cases, the abduction is in
fact not real, but part of a pre-arranged courtship tradition. There are also
cases where a young couple stage the kidnapping so as to avoid getting parental
permission for the marriage.
But many of the abductions are all
too real, and anything but voluntary.
“In any village, nine out of every
ten women will have been abducted,” said a resident of Akhalkalaki, Ofelia
Petrosian. “I have a daughter in eighth grade, and I’m afraid to dress her well,
as she will then look pretty and could be abducted.”
Petrosian believes the custom
continues only because social attitudes are so backward. “It’s all down to the
ignorance of young people,” she said. “Their only interest is in getting
married. Women are so worried about feeding their families that nothing else
bothers them and they’re prepared to live like slaves.”
Teenagers in the leafy central park
in Samtskhe-Javakheti’s biggest town, Akhaltsikhe, wear the fashionable clothes
and lace their conversations with the latest slang. But their views are
typically very traditional.
“I will never marry a girl who’s
been abducted once, even if she was returned home on the same day, as her name
will be stained forever,” said one young man, Nika Beridze. “Why would I need a
woman who’s been abducted by someone else? If I love a girl, I may well want to
abduct her too.”
Historians disagree about the
origins of the tradition. Some say it appeared while Samtskhe-Javakheti was
under Ottoman rule or that it came from the east. Others argue that it is
indigenous to the
“This is the
Technically at least, Georgian law
is tough on bride-kidnapping. Article 23 of the criminal code covering “crimes
against human rights and freedoms” stipulates a sentence of four to eight years
imprisonment for the offence, and if it is found to be a premeditated act by a
group of people, the prison term can go up to 12 years.
This reflects a change in
legislation a few years ago, when a new law was drafted to define
bride-snatching as “kidnapping with the goal of marriage”. Until then, it had
been viewed as a minor offence which was punished lightly if at all.
Activists and legal experts here say
that the legal changes and prospects of severe punishment have had some
deterrent effect. But they say it not nearly enough.
“Of the very many abduction cases in
Javakheti, only two or three have been officially recorded,” said
Akhalkalaki-based lawyer Anaida Oganesian, an expert on bride kidnapping.
“Why is a woman never asked whether
she loves the man or not?” she said. “She does not even know that she has rights
which she can defend in court. Mothers say to their daughters, ‘What will people
say? You’ll have to put up with it, as I did in my time.’”
Oganesian recently worked on the
only case ever to come before a judge in Akhalkalaki. “I was defending the
girl’s interests and did my best to get the abductor convicted,” she recalled.
“But at the last moment she refused, saying, ‘let him leave me alone, and I
won’t seek a conviction’.
“The man got away with it. The girl
is now in depression and never goes out of her house.”
The lawyer says the abductors
operate with impunity because the victims are treated with opprobrium rather
than sympathy, “Women are socially vulnerable. In my experience, there haven’t
been any cases where a culprit has been punished. A girl who’s been abducted
gets no understanding even from her own family; her relatives see it as a
disgrace if she returns home.
“The way generations are being
brought up is wrong. People using violence against women are not held
accountable.”
Oganesian concluded, “It’s just like
the 16th century.”
Several non-governmental
organisations, NGOs, in Samtskhe-Javakheti are trying to teach young women what
their rights are and how they can protect themselves against violence. But they
say that changing mindsets even among young people is proving very difficult.
“We meet women of whom a majority
have been abducted. They have families and live happily. At least that’s what
they say,” said Marina Modebadze, leader of the Woman Democrats in
Samtskhe-Javakheti group. “It’s hard to change their mentality. We don’t harbour
illusions that everything can be changed immediately, but little by little
results will be achieved.”
Modebadze’s group has published
information booklets and set up a hot line, and plans to set up a safe house for
victims of attempted kidnappings.
Maia, who says she started to love
her husband only after more than a year after she was bride kidnapped, shrugs
off such activism.
“All shall be as God wills,” said
Maia. “The first year of my marriage was difficult, but with God’s help we
overcame all the difficulties together. Now I have a daughter growing up, and
her future is my major concern. If she ever gets abducted, that will be God’s
will, too.”
As for her two sons, she said, “One
day they may do what their father did – abduct the one they
love.
“There’s no escaping the
tradition.”
Gulo Kokhodze and Tamuna Uchidze are
correspondents for Southern Gates newspaper, published with IWPR support in
Samtskhe-Javakheti.