Legislature passes bride abduction law

TALAS — The Territorial Legislature yesterday passed the Abduction for Marriage Act, making the abduction of a woman to force her into marriage a specific criminal offense punishable by five to ten years in prison, and by up to twelve where the victim is under 18.

The act also bars registry offices from registering a marriage that began with an abduction. Until now such cases have been prosecuted under general kidnapping provisions and have usually ended in a fine.

Supporters of the bill pointed to the case of Saikal Imanaly kyzy, who was 19 when she was abducted in a Kara-Buura village in 2015 and escaped two days later. Represented by Gulnara Sadykova of the Legal Defense Guild, she pressed charges; the court at Kyzyl-Adyr fined her abductor. The verdict set off the Ak Jooluk, or “white headscarf”, campaign by women’s groups, whose members watched yesterday’s vote from the gallery. Sadykova called the act “a beginning”, adding that its value would depend on prosecutors.

The Syro-Iradi Synod’s 2014 pastoral letter On the Free Consent of Spouses calls bride kidnapping “a sin against the sacrament and against the dignity of women”. The act does not apply in the tribal regions, where clan councils differ on whether an abducted woman who stays is married.