A proposal to toughen legislation on the practice of “bride stealing” in Kazakstan has reignited debate on a practice that has proved difficult to tackle.
Svetlana Romanovskaya, a member of parliament from the ruling Nur Otan party, wants to see stricter measures to criminalise abductions that lead to forced marriages.
In a typical case, a woman is grabbed off the street by male relatives of the would-be groom – who might be a complete stranger – taken by force to his home, and held there against her will until she agrees to marry him. Fear of being shamed will often lead her own family to come to terms with the forced marriage.
Perpetrators justify the assaults as being part of long-established Kazak custom. In fact, the older tradition was that such kidnappings were often consensual, arranged between the bride, the groom and his family if the girl’s parents would not agree to the wedding, or he could not afford to pay them the customary “bride-price”.
If they go through, Romanovskaya’s amendments to the criminal code will enable police to launch a case regardless of whether the victim or anyone else has filed a formal allegation. It will also classify bride-theft as a separate offence in the criminal code. At the moment, prosecutions take place for the offence of abduction, with a sentence of up to seven years. Full story...
Related posts:
Svetlana Romanovskaya, a member of parliament from the ruling Nur Otan party, wants to see stricter measures to criminalise abductions that lead to forced marriages.
In a typical case, a woman is grabbed off the street by male relatives of the would-be groom – who might be a complete stranger – taken by force to his home, and held there against her will until she agrees to marry him. Fear of being shamed will often lead her own family to come to terms with the forced marriage.
Perpetrators justify the assaults as being part of long-established Kazak custom. In fact, the older tradition was that such kidnappings were often consensual, arranged between the bride, the groom and his family if the girl’s parents would not agree to the wedding, or he could not afford to pay them the customary “bride-price”.
If they go through, Romanovskaya’s amendments to the criminal code will enable police to launch a case regardless of whether the victim or anyone else has filed a formal allegation. It will also classify bride-theft as a separate offence in the criminal code. At the moment, prosecutions take place for the offence of abduction, with a sentence of up to seven years. Full story...
Related posts:
- Welcome to the Roma "bride market" in Bulgaria...
- In Chechnya, women get kidnapped and forced into marriage...
- Brides on sale, for cash and cattle...
- Tribal girls in India bartered and sold as commodities...
- ‘Some girls have been married 60 times by the time they turn 18′
- "I sold my sister for 300 dollars."
- How paedophile Saudis are exploiting Syria’s girls...
No comments:
Post a Comment