‘Bride kidnapping’ won’t be stopped by mere words

Joel Brinkley – SFGate – Wednesday, 14 December 2011(originally published 11 Dec)

Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayayeva shakes hands with successor Almazbek Atambayev

Outgoing President Roza Otunbayeva denounced Kyrgyzstan's practice of taking brides by force, but successor Almazbek Atambayev remains mum. Image: Vladimir Voronin/AP

On her final full day in office, President Roza Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan became the first senior Kyrgyz official to forcefully denounce “bride kidnapping,” an entrenched custom in her Central Asian state.

“Bride kidnapping is a tradition of the Kyrgyz people,” she acknowledged as she was preparing to leave the presidential palace Nov. 29. “But these crimes often force women to commit suicide.”

Young men kidnap about 15,000 girls each year, Otunbayeva said. They simply grab a girl walking down the street, stuff her in the car, kicking and screaming, and take her home. They might rape her – or not. Either way, after she’s locked up overnight in an unrelated man’s house, the girl is unfit to wed anyone else. Her family won’t permit her to come home. So she’s forced to marry her kidnapper . . .

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