Kyrgyzstan

13% of girls in Kyrgyzstan marry before the age of 18.

Child marriage in Kyrgyzstan is most prevalent in rural areas with 16% of women between the ages of 20-24 married before the age of 18 and 9% in urban areas. In rural areas, prevalence rates are highest in Talas (18%), Chui (17%), Naryn (17%), Jalal-Abad (15%), Issyk-Kul and Batken (15%) and Osh (15%).

The spousal age difference for women between the ages of 15-19 whose husband was 0-4 years older was 36% in urban areas and 61% in rural areas; for 5-9 years older 57% in urban areas and 36% in rural areas; for husbands who were 10 or more years older, 2% in urban areas and 3% in rural areas.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.

In Kyrgyzstan, child marriage is also driven by:

Level of education: 26% of women with no education or primary level education were married before the age of 18, compared to only 4% who had completed higher education.

Poverty: 18% of women from Kyrgyzstan’s poorest households were married as children, compared to 6% from the richest households.

Harmful practices: Ala Kachuu (bride kidnapping), while outlawed in 2013, is widely tolerated in Kyrgyzstan. In 2018, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that in the last five years, there were 895 cases of bride kidnapping. Local NGOs estimate that almost 12,000 women and girls are abducted for marriage annually. This leaves girls in a particularly isolated and vulnerable position, often unable to access support. Many times, the families of the victims are reluctant to allow them to return home due to the perceived shame for the family. Socially, it is believed that this practice takes place as men are unable to afford to pay the bridal price.

Family honour: Some families marry their daughters in order shield them from pre-marital sex and “set them up for life”.

Ethnicity: Child marriage is reportedly widely practiced among Uzbeks, Dungans, Turks, Tajiks and Central Asian Lyuli people, primarily driven by traditional customs and attitudes. Child marriage is most prevalent amongst the Uzbek community with 16% of women between the ages of 20-24 married before the age of 18, compared to 10% Russian, 13% Kyrgyz, and 21% other ethnicity.

Religion: Mullahs reportedly still conduct nikah (“marriage” in Islamic law) religious ceremonies for girls under the age of 18. These marriages are rarely registered officially and are difficult to track.

Armed conflict: Child marriage as a result of rape reportedly increased following ethnic clashes in Osh and Jalalabad in the south of the country in 2010.

Kyrgyzstan has committed to ending child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The government submitted a 2020 Voluntary National Review at the High Level Political Forum. In this review, the government noted that there had been a 27% increase in the number of convictions for forced marriage and marriage by abduction. Over 20% of marriages are by bride kidnapping and 6% are forced. Women living in rural areas are twice as likely to be abducted for marriage than those living in urban areas.

The government has not submitted a Voluntary National Review in any High Level Political Forum since 2020.

Kyrgyzstan co-sponsored the 2013, 2014, 2020 and 2022 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage, and the 2013 and 2023 Human Rights Council resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

Kyrgyzstan acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has interpreted to recommend the establishment of a minimum age of marriage of 18, and acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1997, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2023 review, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern at the prevalence of child marriage and the legal minimum age of marriage being 17 years old. The Committee recommended that the government increase the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 years, without exceptions, address the root causes of child marriage, and strengthen measures to prevent child marriage.

During its 2021 review, the CEDAW Committee acknowledged the government’s progress in making legislative reforms to the Criminal Code, criminalizing bride kidnapping and child marriage, and the Act on Protection and Defence against Domestic Violence. However, the Committee recommended that the government prevent and protect victims of bride kidnapping, prosecute and punish perpetrators of bride kidnapping, and ensure that all reported cases of gender-based violence are adequately investigated and victims have access to legal assistance.

In 2018, the CEDAW Committee led an inquiry into Kyrgyzstan’s failure to prevent, protect and assist victims, as well as to prosecute and adequately punish perpetrators of bride kidnapping as a form of child and forced marriage. Among other recommendations, the Committee urgently called Kyrgyzstan to:

Exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, punish and provide reparations for all crimes of bride kidnapping.

Provide mandatory and effective capacity-building for law enforcement personnel.

Remove the barriers to access to justice faced by women and girls who are victims of bride kidnapping.

Effectively implement preventive measures to change the underlying causes of bride kidnapping.

During its 2020 Universal Periodic Review, it was noted that between 2015 and 2018, there were 165 reported cases of bride kidnapping, of which 132 were referred to the courts.

During its 2015 Universal Periodic Review, concerns were raised about the persistence of child marriage and bride kidnapping. Kyrgyzstan supported recommendations to introduce more effective policies to combat child marriage and to strengthen public campaigns and awareness-raising on the unacceptability of the practice.

Kyrgyzstan is a pathfinding country of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

With the support of the Spotlight Initiative, the game ‘Spring in Bishkek’ was launched to raise awareness on the practice of Ala-Kachuu, bride kidnapping. Since the launch of the game in June 2020, it has been downloaded over 100,000 times.

The National Federation of Women’s Communities of Kyrgyzstan (NFFCK) is a local NGO that aims to raise awareness on child marriage and gender discrimination in Kyrgyzstan. NFFCK was provided a grant by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women which allowed them to pilot an educational programme, Education Girls Through Education, Art and Media, in three villages. Since 2016, NFFCK has educated 12,000 girls on their rights, 1,600 girls on consultations on bride kidnapping and child marriage and provided 500 girls with practical support.

In December 2017, a Plan for the implementation of the Preventing Early Marriage Act was approved by eight Government agencies. Since then, the government has reportedly implemented various awareness raising activities on the negative consequences and unlawful nature of bride kidnapping and early marriage.

With the support of UNDP and the Defenders of the Rights of the Child, a non-governmental foundation, the government has also trained representatives of law enforcement bodies, education, social protection and health authorities, among others, on the prevention of child marriages.

Despite these recent efforts, in 2018 the CEDAW Committee found that Kyrgyzstan had committed grave violations for systematically failing to enforce existing laws and protect a significant number of women and girls from bride kidnapping, child and forced marriage.

There is a growing civil society movement organising to raise awareness and prevent the practice of bride kidnapping.

Previously, the National Human Rights Programme, which ran from 2002-2010 and was approved by Presidential decree, aimed to upgrade mechanisms for monitoring enforcement of laws related to coercion into child marriage.

Under Article 14 of the Family Code 2005 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. However, if there is a good reason, the local government may reduce the marriage age by one year on the basis of an approval from the Commission on Family and Child Support Department.

Under Article 13(1) of the Family Code, there must be mutual consent between a man and a woman who have attained the legal minimum age of marriage to enter into a marriage.

The 2013 parliamentary approval of Article 155 of the Criminal Code criminalised the abduction of a girl or woman for forced marriage.