Ala Kachuu – to take and flee
I just learned about this custom / practice in my Ethics Class. This disturbing.
Bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice in which a man abducts the woman he wishes to marry. Bride kidnapping has been practiced throughout history around the world and continues to occur.
In many cases, society encourages the family of the bride to accept the marriage.
In Kyrgyztan, as rural migrants flood into the city, young men too poor to afford the pageantry of a traditional wedding opt instead to kidnap a bride.
Bowing to social pressure, parents of a kidnapping victim often do not take their daughter back because, the thinking goes, a kidnapping suggests the woman has somehow been sullied. Many kidnapping victims are raped and a daughter’s virginity is prized in conservative Kyrgyz households.
This should be stopped. Every person has hisher own rights and that includes a woman’s freedom to choose who to marry. It’s as if the government allows the men in their society to objectify women.
witheringthyme
Unfortunately, this happens in a lot of countries where it cannot be stopped 😦 It’s so sad that women are abused in many cultures and have no way to defend themselves. I recently watched a documentary on child marriage and, while it is not the same thing, it is still terrible because the children have no idea what is going on. Often the parents believe they are doing what is best for the child, especially since rape happens all the time.
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venicedelacruz
It’s sad. But it’s also nice that just recently, a bunch of young women in my country organized a forum called ‘No Shame Campaign’ wherein victims speak about their experiences – it’s a place and time where victims should not be blamed of the unfortunate experience.
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