KAZAKHSTAN Kazakh women reject the draft tax on marriages with foreigners

It is an initiative of parliamentarian Karakat Abden. Human rights activists launch a petition to remove her from it. The objectification of women, a tradition that persists. Part of establishment considers intermarriage a threat to the nation.

Moscow () – The new member of the Kazakhstan Parliament, Karakat Abden, has presented a proposal that is causing a stir in the country: “tax Kazakh women who marry foreigners”. Immediately, a group of women’s rights activists began collecting signatures for a petition calling for Abden’s removal from her parliamentary seat.

In her intervention on a television program, the deputy argued that ‘a Kazakh’ is a national talisman, and we cannot lose it to give it abroad, that is why I request that a tax be applied on mixed marriages”. The policy had already hinted this project in last year’s presidential election campaign, when she appeared as a “front” candidate competing with outgoing President Tokaev.

The new deputy for the social-patriotic Auyl party, Abden affirms that she has the support of the other deputies from her bloc. The country’s feminists have risen up against her, who already demonstrated on March 8 with the slogan “we are not their toys”, aimed precisely at those who, like Abden, want to manipulate the role of Kazakh women.

Ajžan is a woman married to a foreigner and lives with her husband and family in Thailand. To comment on the bill, she intervened on social networks: “If the deputy is greedy for taxes, she should take them from the husbands who beat her wives.” In his opinion, the tax on marriages would be “an attack against the rights of the person and of Kazakh girls: with this same criteria, they could deny them access to education and keep them segregated at home… Different groups coexist in Kazakhstan ethnic groups, and for centuries people [de distintas etnias] marries”.

The professor of International Law Ajgerim Kusainkyzy also considers that Abden’s proposal constitutes a violation of rights, an “objectification of girls and young people”, turned into commercial objects: “The right to freedom of choice must always prevail, although in the Kazakh society discusses the honor of girls and young women, on which the future of society depends, and it is thought that those who accept a mixed marriage have a negative influence on it”. Also, in Kazakh traditions, girls are seen as family property, which cannot be given to foreigners, and when this happens, the girl is seen as the culprit of all ills in the family and society.

As humanitarian activist Bella Orynbetova recalls, the number of women victims of violence is growing every year in Kazakhstan. “This also depends on the spread of opinions that damage the dignity and credibility of women…if a Kazakh woman happily marries a foreigner, these people cannot accept it.”

Abden tried to respond to these criticisms from his Facebook page, noting that “this proposal is part of the initiatives to defend our national values ​​and reinforce the patriotic spirit, and in any case I have asked that it be debated by the whole Parliament, with the help of scientific experts and sociological investigations”.

Young women walking down the street with their non-ethnic boyfriend or husband are often filmed in videos that are then uploaded to the Internet, with the purpose of “saving the nation”, as many write. The question of intermarriage of Kazakh girls had already been raised in Parliament a few years ago, when Senator Žabal Ergaliev declared in 2012 that restrictions should be imposed on the girls’ trips abroad. The poet Rinat Zaitov, elected deputy this year by the presidential Amanat party, argued that “Abden’s proposal can be correct, if the interest of the nation is taken into account. Everything must be done to preserve the people of the Kazakh state “. Zaitov recalled that the “kalyma”, the payment for girls, is “an old tradition of the Kazakhs.” In his opinion, the issue is aimed at “improving our demographic condition,” and “if a girl marries a foreigner, the state also has its rights,” he concluded.