Kyrgyzstan: Bride-Kidnapping, Domestic Abuse Rampant
Despite
Progressive Laws, Violence Against Women Goes Unpunished(Bishkek,
September 27, 2006) - Kyrgyzstan's government is allowing
domestic violence
and the abduction of women for forced marriage to
continue with impunity,
Human Rights Watch said today in its first report
on human rights violations
in this Central Asian country.
"Police in Kyrgyzstan have an obligation
to ensure that perpetrators of
domestic violence and bride-kidnapping are
brought to justice," said Holly
Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. "But
more often than not, they simply don't treat these
as serious crimes."
The 140-page report, "Reconciled
to Violence: State Failure to Stop
Domestic Abuse and Abduction of Women in
Kyrgyzstan," concludes that
although Kyrgyzstan has progressive laws on
violence against women,
police and other authorities fail to implement them.
As a result, women
remain in danger and without access to
justice.
Based on in-depth, firsthand interviews with
victims of violence, the
report tells the stories of women who have been
kicked, strangled, beaten,
stabbed and sexually assaulted by their husbands.
The report also tracks
what happens when women seek help from the
authorities. Instead of
attaining safety and access to justice, they are
encouraged to reconcile
with their abusers.
A
38-year-old woman, "Elmira E." told Human Rights Watch about being
beaten by
her husband for years and hospitalized, once for a knife wound
and another
time for a concussion after he kicked her in the head. "The
situation was so
bad that I thought it would be better if he killed me," she
said.
Women suffer serious and permanent injury
from domestic violence, and
many are emotionally traumatized by the abuse,
even years later. Left with
nowhere to go and no access to police
protection, many women lose hope.
The report also
examines the controversial issue of "bride-kidnapping," or
abduction for
forced marriage. Women and girl victims of bride-
kidnapping describe being
grabbed, forced into cars, isolated and in some
cases raped by their
abductors.
"Many Kyrgyz officials portray
bride-kidnapping as a harmless ritual, a
voluntary practice. But women all
over the country paint a very different
picture," said Acacia Shields,
senior researcher and author of the report.
"Abduction for forced marriage
is a violent and traumatic experience that
involves taking a woman against
her will. It's a serious crime, and police
need to start treating it that
way."
Despite government claims that abduction of
women by complete
strangers is rare, many women told Human Rights Watch that
they were
kidnapped by men they did not know. In other cases, acquaintances
use
deception to kidnap a woman - often inviting her to a party or offering
her
a ride home from school, and then shuttling her off without warning to
the
home of her abductor.
Seventeen-year-old
"Feruza F." was raped on her wedding night by her
abductor, a stranger until
that day: "He forced me to have sex with him the
first night. A woman came
to say that they'd prepared my bed; I thought
I'd be alone. I lay down to
sleep, then he came in and he forced himself on
me and raped me. I was
saying no and he still did it. I cried and
screamed.There were other times,
too, when he raped me. I didn't ever
want to go to sleep."
Human Rights Watch challenged the government of President
Kurmanbek
Bakiev to make ending violence against women a priority. The
report
called on the government to implement its domestic violence law,
including by issuing guidelines for protection orders and directing police
to enforce such orders. It also called on the government to enforce existing
criminal laws against assault and abduction and to prosecute perpetrators
of domestic violence and kidnapping to the fullest extent of the
law.
Kyrgyzstan's international donors should
increase financial and technical
assistance to civil society organizations
providing services to women and
girls who have suffered
violence.
"A strong and sustained international focus
on this issue, coupled with
concrete support, is needed if we are to see
real improvement in the lives
of women in Kyrgyzstan," said Cartner.
To read the report, "Reconciled to Violence: State Failure to Stop
Domestic Abuse and Abduction of Women in Kyrgyzstan," please visit:
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/kyrgyzstan0906/