KYRGYZSTAN Illegal polygamy in Kyrgyzstan

Despite being officially prohibited in Bishkek, polygamous marriages proliferate, facilitated by shadow agencies that operate according to Islamic principles. Their activities also have the support of celebrities. But human rights activists also talk about the other side: the growing number of women’s appeals who have fallen into this trap.

Bishkek () – The number of polygamous marriages is increasing in Kyrgyzstan, despite the fact that they are directly prohibited by law. As Radio Azattyk journalists have documented, the proliferation of polygamy is favored by numerous shadow marriage agencies, which operate on the basis of “Islamic principles of family creation”, promising men a second wife, and it helps women to establish themselves as second or third wives.

Messages such as “I agree to become a second wife”, “I am looking for a man for a secret marriage”, “I already have a wife, but to please Allah I am willing to marry for the second time” appear in various segments of social networks. There is no shortage of advertisements for agencies that offer “family formation according to Islamic principles” services, such as the Al-Khajat agency, whose Instagram page shows photographs of meetings with potential spouses and videos of clients filling out paperwork. necessary. They are often accompanied by the crucial question: “What do you think of polygamy?”

The activities of these agencies are also supported by famous personalities, such as the Kyrgyz singer Angelica, who claims that “if there was a first date, there will be a second, it’s up to you.” The users of these sites seem to be quite numerous, such as one of the interviewees, Majram (not her real name), who a few years ago became a second wife thanks to an agency, carrying out the project “after three dates with a married man.” She says that she consulted the website nikah.kg, after having been looking for a husband for a year and a half, and that they finally put her in touch with the right one, whose first wife was sick and with whom she could not have relations.

In the end, the man Majram married hid her not only from his first wife, but also from all his numerous relatives, but everything changed when she gave birth to a child with Down syndrome. “When he found out that the boy was not normal,” says Majram, “his relationship with me changed radically, I was in the hospital and he never came to see me, he didn’t call, he just disappeared, and in the end we got divorced.” Today, the woman and the child have no right, neither to the property of her now ex-husband, nor to the possibility of receiving alimony for the children, since the marriage is not recognized as official, and was celebrated religiously without civil registry.

According to the law passed by the Kyrgyz Parliament eight years ago, Muslim religious are prohibited from celebrating the nikakh if ​​the spouses have not registered the marriage in the civil office of Zags, but this prohibition is usually ignored in mosques, without even hide it. As Taštemir Ešmatov, vice-imam of the April 7 Mosque in Bishkek, explains, “when we have a divorcee and a widow, we always celebrate the marriage, even without the consent of the first wife, if the marriage is still standing, although it is better to do it when she agrees.

Kyrgyz humanitarian activists report a sharp increase in petitions from women who have fallen into the trap of polygamous families. Bubusara Ryskulova, director of the Sezim crisis center in Biškek, explains: “Mostly first wives come to us, and each one has her own story. There are women who run businesses with their husbands, but they cannot have children, and the husband does not divorce for fear of losing his income and part of the property, trying to get his wife’s consent to take a second wife, who gets give him the desired offspring. In these cases, the fertile wife is often thrown out, without even being allowed to see the children she has produced.

Kyrgyz legislation leaves many loopholes for these solutions full of contradictions and injustices, as many commentators claim. Cohabitation and the sharing of property are prohibited, but when wives are left in different homes, it is difficult to prove violation of the law, and even more difficult to defend women’s rights.