Bride kidnapping is still common practice for many in Kyrgyzstan

By: Samantha Peko

Produced & edited by: Jaelynn Grisso

“Tell my dad I am still a virgin; I hope I am leaving for a peaceful place now,” read the suicide note of a 17 year-old girl who was kidnapped.

Bride kidnapping is called “ala kachuu” in Kyrgyz. Typically, ala kachuu involves a girl being abducted, taken to a man’s home and then coerced by his family into marriage. Once the girl is taken, she cannot go back to her family.

About one third of Kyrgyzstani girls are married this way, most are younger than 18 and it occurs in all regions of Kyrgyzstan, Russell Kleinbach explained. Kleinbach is the program director for the Kyz-Korgon Institute. He has led several studies and educational outreach programs since 2003. His research showed that bride kidnapping was uncommon prior to the Soviet-era but many Kyrgyz believe it is an ancient tradition which justifies the act of kidnapping.

Ala kachuu tradition

Nuraiym Orozobekova became an advocate after almost being kidnapped herself. She avoided this fate after being warned of a family friend’s son’s plot from her mother.

“I wanted to choose my husband myself, so I decided to help our Kyrgyz women who are in this situation,” she said.

She has coordinated several anti-bride kidnapping projects at the Kyz-Korgon Institute and the sociology department at the American University of Central Asia. Through her advocacy, Orozobekova has been able to lead educational programs that de-romanticizes bride kidnapping.

“Bride kidnapping was always one of the biggest challenges for girls and women in Kyrgyzstan,” said Aishoola Aisaeva, who is a member of the Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ.

One of the problems with bride kidnapping is that it starts to seem normal to those don’t know what the alternatives are, she explained. Aisaeva talked about a woman she knew that was kidnapped by a man she had not met just after she had completed her education at a local university. Despite years of being in a difficult marriage, later in life, the kidnapped bride consented to the marriages of three of her daughters by kidnap and pressured her son into kidnapping her now daughter-in-law, Aisaeva recalled.

The act of bride kidnapping remains prevalent 

in Kyrgyzstan. | Photo courtesy of VICE News

“Why can't girls just leave? It's scary,” she asked.

Aisaeva blames societal pressure.

“If a woman was kidnapped and left the house [her captor’s], it will mean that she has already been in a marriage and not pure anymore. It makes families of kidnapped girls afraid of being ashamed of that,” she said.

If a girl is lucky enough to learn about the plot beforehand, some women find refuge in their family or friends’ homes because most police officers do not offer any protection, she explained.

“It happened with my cousin, who lived in my home for one month, until the man finally stopped coming to her house and kidnapped another girl,” she said.

Sevara Khaldarova, a project assistant for Open Line Organization, explained that many men kidnap women because of peer pressure. Open Line researches and documents violations against women’s rights, particularly on bride abduction. Khaldarova said that a lot of kidnapping occurs when a man’s friends are already married but he is unsuccessful. Then, his friends might tell him to kidnap a girl and even offer their help. Kleinbach conducted seminars in 37 schools and surveyed a total 608 male and female students. According to his 2015 report to UNICEF, 67% of the respondents said that men kidnap girls because other men do.

Underlying the sense of societal obligation is the sentiment that Kyrgyz women are property of their husbands. Azat Ruziev, a native of Karakol, Kyrgyzstan, said that there are a lot of people that are just stupid.

“One of the deepest root of most problems in Kyrgyzstan is that some people think they are better than others and they have rights to do what they want with people around. They do not carry consider a girl as a human, for them is just an item, that you can steal. After wedding this item has to make children, clean houses, take care of this stupid man and sometimes his parents,” he said.

Legal actions

Under Kyrgyz Criminal Code Article 155, “kidnapping a woman to marry against her will” is illegal. After amendments were made in 2013, the sentence changed from a fine to five to seven years imprisonment.

Banur Abdieva is a civil initiative leader with an organization called Youth Volunteer Organization (YVO) Leader. She was also actively involved in the “without spring” campaign that asked for harsher punishments for men who kidnapped their brides.

President Almazbek Atambayev signed a law in 2013
increasing the penalty for bride kidnapping in
Kyrgyzstan from a fine to five to seven years in prison. | Photo
courtesy of Dawn News. 

This campaign started when the Alliance of Women’s Legislative of Issy-Kul region in Karakol protested to amend the Kyrgyz criminal code on May 18, 2011 after two girls in the region committed suicide after being kidnapped. Venus Kasymalieva committed suicide on December, 18 2010 and Nurzat Kalykova on March 9, 2011. Civil action taken during the first six-month period after the first tragedy. Abdieva remembered nearly 2,000 people came to support the cause, holding spring flowers (a stock symbol). 

The next year, June 2012, there was another bride that committed suicide in Karakol.

Abdieva and other activists spoke with the husband’s family after, “his family were puzzled why the daughter Dinara [the bride who committed suicide] was so unruly.” She explained that the husband and family did not feel that they had done anything wrong, and attributed this to the light punishment that men received even if a suit was filed.

After 20 months, the law was signed by President Atambaev on January 28, 2013.

However, there still remains the problem of enforcing it.

“Law enforcement agencies do not adequately respond to bride kidnapping situations and they often use moralistic, sexist attitude towards both women who were bride kidnapped and women human rights defenders who are defending them,” said Saadat, who is an advocate with the Bishkek Feminist Initiatives (BFI) and asked to be identified by her first name only. BFI runs community house and feminist education projects, anti-violence and sexual rights advocacy campaigns and promotes the rights of women human rights defenders.

Year’s El Niño only offers temporary relief for water-strained Mexico

By: Sam Howard

Produced & edited by: Jaelynn Grisso

Rain could be coming to semi-arid Northern Mexico this winter — in the form of an El Niño.

But after years of what academics say has been political and economic misuse ofwater infrastructure there, it might come as too little, too late for Mexico’s small farmers and struggling families.

Even in the southernmost state of Chiapas, where rainfall has historically been much steadier, many rural Mexicans are strictly living off bottled water, said Esteban Castro, a professor at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.

Castro, a sociologist, has researched water conflicts throughout Latin America for more than 30 years.

The north of Mexico has lower rainfall on average,

as shown in this map. | Photo courtesy of the 

website Geo-Mexico.

When Castro studied in Chiapas more than 20 years ago, he said, about 50 percent of the Mexicans there lived without tap water. Beyond the lack of support for agriculture or life itself, Castro said that had implications on the way those Mexican citizens thought of themselves.

“They feel outside public life (and had) the struggle to become citizens,” Castro said. “They don’t feel they are citizens.

“They don’t even have water.”

Official Mexican government maps of water conflicts, made in the 1980s, failed to chart disputes in Chiapas, Castro said. He said that is emblematic of the government’s apathy toward the issue.

“(In) the state (of Chiapas), I’m under the impression that not much has changed (since then),” he said.

Problems in northern Mexico

The north of Mexico, though, is another problem altogether, said María Torregrosa.

In those semi-arid regions, the professor at the Latin American Social Sciences Institute in Mexico City said, small farmers who depend on irrigation to grow food have “been going through decades of drought.”

This winter might be some respite, as it is the first El Niño season since 2010. The system traditionally brings more precipitation to the most arid parts of Northern Mexico near the U.S. border and has already brought more tropical storms, like Hurricane Patricia, in the Pacific to the country’s western coast.

But any rainfall would likely be a temporary solution, as Torregrosa said small Mexican farmers have been struggling for more than a decade.

That situation has worsened since the late 1990s, she said, when the Mexican government turned irrigation districts over to private user organizations. Many small-time farmers simply cannot compete with the interests of big farms, she said.

Those two looming problems, in addition to a free tradeagreement with the U.S., she said, folded many small grain and vegetable farms and sent workers packing for jobs north of the border.

That recipe is simple, said José Pimentel, a professor for the Postgraduate College just east of Mexico City. He said the “varias problemas” small farmers in Mexico face boil down to two things.

“One is low precipitation,” he said. “Two is administration.”

Only the big agricultural firms remain in many places, committed to producing crops such as strawberries and tomatoes for sale in the U.S., Castro said, instead of traditional Mexican products such as corn. He added that those big landowners can afford to buy into and be vocal members of their local irrigation districts.

“Rich irrigation districts are probably doing better because they can produce for export,” Castro said. He said that means there is less “water for poorer people to continue farming.”

According to data from the United Nations, Mexico in 2011 exported about five times as many tons of tomatoes as it did in 1971. In 1971, corn was the fourth-most exported Mexican crop. As of 2011, corn was not even in the top 20 most-exported crops.

Unclean water in Mexico City

And the problem is not only limited to the rural areas. On the east side of Mexico City, Juan Santibañez estimates roughly 70 percent of schools do not have access to clean water.

If they get any water at all coming out of their faucets, the professor with the National Autonomous University of Mexico said that water mostly resembles “chocolate water.”

He credits that contamination with the inability for water to safely get pumped from the neighboring city of Toluca. Castro said Mexico City loses 50 percent of its water potential to leaks.

As the city tries to pump more water into urban areas to cut the difference, rural indigenous populations west of the city are losing more of their water supply, Castro said.

“They have destroyed, basically, the livelihoods of communities,” he said.

Santibañez’s university is working with local schools to build rain-catching systems that can help store some limited water supplies on Mexico City’s east side.

“The everyday life of the schools is dramatic,” he said. “There’s no water for the toilet. There’s no water and of course, if the water comes, the water is of very bad quality.” 

A vendor prepares bottle of water to sell to 

street food vendors in Mexico City. | Photo 

courtesy of The Guardian. 

Because water systems are in the hands of the users, Santibañez said the only thing that could make the situation better would be more private investment.

For the time being, he said, many children are living off one small bottle of water a day.

“We are every day living in the risk of catastrophe,” Santibañez said.

Many Mexicans are forced to live off of about 40 liters of water or less each day, said Jacinta Palerm. In contrast, the professor at the Postgraduate College estimates most Americans consume as much as five times of much water on a daily basis.

The contamination has not only affected water for drinking and farming. She said rivers in Mexico are “like the Hudson” in New York.

“All the rivers in Mexico are dirty,” she said, adding that many families are left having to “buy water from tankers and that’s really expensive.”

The situation for farmers is just as dire, Santibañez said, and it does not look like it will change any time soon — El Niño or not.

“The small farmers, the poor farmers, cannot survive in this context,” he said. “The short-term future of this population is trending to disappear.”

Jamaica revitalizes anti-doping system just in time for 2016 Olympics

By: McKenzie Powell

Produced & edited by: Jaelynn Grisso

Just two short years after Jamaica was placed under strict scrutiny for failing to meet international anti-doping standards, the country has demonstrated an improvement in both anti-doping testing procedures and education, right in time for the 2016 Olympic Games.

In 2013, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) inspected Jamaica’s anti-doping processes, revealing a lack of proper testing and several athletes testing positive. This incident led to the resignation of the entire Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) board, and reports declaring Jamaica’s potential ineligibility for the 2016 Olympics.

Jamaica's new anti-doping program

Fortunately, for Jamaica, it seems JADCO and the country as a whole have increased their efforts toward creating a more thorough and qualified anti-doping program, comprised of improvements with both testing and education.

Jamaican runner set a new world record in the 4x100 track
event at the 2012 London Olympics. Leighton Levy, a sports
journalist in Jamaica, said he believes wins like these put
the spotlight on Jamaica. | Photo courtesy of The Daily Mail.

“Since January 2014, the agency has gone through several changes to ensure that its processes are aligned to the International Standards set out by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and that it has qualified and competent personnel to carry out its duties,” wrote Carey Brown, executive director of JADCO.

JADCO was established in correlation with Jamaica’s Anti-Doping in Sports Act of 2008 in an effort to create a dope-free sports environment. The commission is funded by the Jamaican Government and is expected to meet the standards established by WADA.

Leighton Levy, who is a sports journalist for Nationwide News Network, believes that a major cause of the Jamaican testing scandal in 2013 was a lack of funding and the world’s increased awareness of Jamaica’s talent in sports – particularly in track and field.

“Now that we are winning more on a consistent basis, we are under the spotlight,” Levy said. “There were issues back in 2013 [when] the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission did not have the proper testing kits. They now have the funding to do a lot more than they were previously.”

According to JADCO, in addition to more thorough testing procedures, the commission also introduced blood testing in June of 2015 in collaboration with a local plhebotomy company called Central Medical Laboratories. This form of testing is becoming more and more necessary, as it often detects more substances than urine testing alone.

The 2015 edition of the WADA Prohibited Substances and Methods List includes pages of banned exogenous and endogenous substances organized into categories like anabolic agents, peptide hormones, growth factors and mimetics, diuretics and masking agents, and more.

Accidentally doping

The Prohibited Substances and Methods List is very detailed and complex, meaning athletes may be more susceptible to inadvertantly taking supplements that contain one or more of these banned substances.

“As it's the chemical component and not specific brands that are listed, sometimes athletes consume items that contain banned substances without being aware,” said Neish Gaye McLean, who received a post-graduate diploma in sports management from the University of the West Indies (UWI) in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

Many say that one of the biggest doping concerns in Jamaica
revolves is athletes unintentionally taking prohibited
substances when they take supplements. | Photo courtesy of
the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission

As stated by Levy, the consumption of these items is often due to the athletes’ naiveté and misplaced trust.

“What a lot of athletes would be guilty of is certainly carelessness,” Levy said.

This carelessness is one of the reasons that JADCO has focused on spreading and promoting anti-doping education by hosting workshops for athletes, sporting federations and associations, and professional groups.

In addition to JADCO’s individual efforts, UWI in Mona, Jamaica, has held several anti-doping workshops to raise awareness of the potential risks of taking supplements, while also examining strengths and weaknesses of Jamaica’s anti-doping program.

“Many of the elite athletes are taking supplements. Supplements are not illegal, taking them is just risky,” said Rachael Irving, who is an assistant professor, senior research fellow and chair of the Anti-Doping Workshop Committee at UWI-Mona.

Irving said that because there have been cases of athletes believing a supplement was clean when, under the WADA rules and regulations, it was not, it is important for athletes to take supplements only if they “absolutely have to.”

“You just have to be careful that you buy from a reputable company,” she said.

UWI-Mona was also chosen by WADA to hold a pilot university course, the first anti-doping course at the university level to be offered in all of the Caribbean. The course, which will be available again in January 2016, incorporates speakers from diverse disciplines, including toxicology, law and sports management.

While there are several cases of athletes taking banned substances unknowingly, there are also instances where athletes will intentionally take something on the banned substance list.

“There’s ambition for fame and money and not everybody’s willing to put in the effort required,” said Andre Lowe, sports editor for the Gleaner Company.

Irving, Levy and Lowe all agree, however, that Jamaica does not house many athletes who deliberately dope.

“Most of the persons that I have been in contact with are persons that don’t know they have taken something,” Irving said. “I may be naïve, but I do not feel that most of our athletes would willingly take drugs – they will willingly take supplements.”

“Our athletes are of a great integrity,” Levy said. “We’ve been doing great things for a really long time. It’s not like we just now need doping to produce some of the world’s greatest athletes.”

Worldwide doping problems

Jamaica is not the first country to have been thrown into the public eye over doping allegations and poor testing regulations. The United States alone has undergone numerous doping scandals involving prominent athletes like track runner Marion Jones and cyclist Lance Armstrong.

As reported by the Guardian, Russia is the most recent country to disobey WADA’s rules, and has been indefinitely suspended from all competitions due to state-sponsored doping.

In June 2015, WADA released the Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) report, which includes statistics of all violations from 2013. The ADRV report states that Russia, Turkey and France were among the top ten violators in the world, with the United States ranking at number 11. When comparing Russia’s total ADRV count of 225 and the United States’ count of 43, Jamaica fell at the bottom with just nine total anti-doping rule violations in 2013.

Libyan Youth in Politics

By: Jaelynn Grisso

Produced and edited by: Joshua Lim

Libyan protesters from Benghazi in 2011. Young Libyans have been 
and still continue to be significant players in the country.
(via Al Jazeera English)

Nearly half of the population of Libya is under the age of 25, making young populations significant players in the country. Many claim the push for the revolution in 2011 was started and fostered by Libyan youth. Since the revolution, youths are taking responsibility in crafting a new civil society.

Ayat Mneina, a 27-year-old Libyan activist based in Canada, said via email that Libyan youths are currently removed from politics.

“Although youth candidates have participated and run in the previous elections-on youth specific slates- they were not successful in garnering enough support to be successfully elected,” Mneina said. “Youth continue to mobilize in other spheres which certainly overlap with politics; including civil society and media.”

Many young Libyans are still politically engaged and they are frustrated with the Libyan governments.

Frustration with the government

Libya is currently operating under two governments – one is internationally recognized – but neither government represents the interest of youth in Libya, youth activists said.

“The Libyan culture is a patriarchal and views the elderly as more capable of leadership,” said Seraj Elalam, who led youth organizations in Libya but recently moved to the U.S. “The consecutive and current Libyan governments have minimal youth representation and the younger members, but still not youth, within these bodies are not vocal or effective.”

Mneina said the youth were not being represented well in the current government because the young people of Libya “do not see the government taking any action to further their agenda.”

“There have been no provisions to provide youth with opportunities or safeguards to ensure young people's active participation in Libyan society,” Mneina said. “Today’s politics in the Libyan government do not ensure that issues brought forth touch the lives of daily Libyans. Instead, it is a pursuit for power and so the ambitions of the revolution and of Libyans across the country are no longer driving governance.”

Yassine Al Farsi, a 19-year-old Moroccan who grew up and now lives in Libya, said the government is out of touch with the young people in Libya.

“Some of the elderly in the government, not the young people who live a miserable life, but their concern is just power and money and they forget about good spirits who had gone wanting good positions in the government,” he said in Arabic.

Similarly, Elalam said the governments were fostering the conflict and creating a heavier burden for young Libyans.

 “Both governments in Libya are driving and maintaining conflict to survive,” he said. “The Libyan conflict is feeding off youth further crippling the young Libyan population and bringing back to life old tribal and regional animosities that this younger generation wasn't aware of, while at the same time birthing new animosities for the youth to carry.”

Youth in the revolution

Many claim that the young population in many countries involved in the uprisings in 2011 – commonly referred to as the Arab Spring – played a prominent role in demonstrating.

“In 2011, Libyan youth activists – armed and unarmed – were at the core of the revolution and vigorously demanded the fall of the Gaddafi regime,” Anna Lührmann noted in a scholarly article published in the Mediterranean Institute Berlin. “Many harbored idealistic expectations for a rapid transformation of the country and immediate and genuine inclusion in political and economic processes.”

The logo of the Libyan Youth Movement.
(via Wikimedia Commons)

She also noted, however, these populations often do not receive representation and formal political power when new governments are formed, which could lead to further instability.

Mneina is the founder of the Libyan Youth Movement, an organization created during the revolution in 2011 to unify and inform Libyans from across the world. The Libyan Youth Movement was a prominent social media force during the revolution.

“Youth were at the forefront of the revolution,” Mneina said. “From joining and organizing the original peaceful protests against the regime to mobilizing in response to brutal crackdowns and eventually fighting on the frontlines. Youth also campaigned and rallied the international community for support, they facilitated humanitarian support to displaced Libyans during the conflict and contributed to the flourishing of media and freedom of expression.”

Since the revolution

Some youth gravitated toward religious conservatism in the years following the revolution. After the revolution, a transitional government was created in Libya to create a constitution. The government failed to do so, and the country broke into a civil war. Shortly after, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — also known as Daesh, the Islamic State or ISIL – entered Libya.

A faction of ISIS, called the Islamic Youth Shura Council, is based in the eastern city of Derna. The Islamic Youth Shura Council was one of the first groups in Libya to pledge its allegiance to ISIS.

Violence continues to break out between the Islamic Youth Shura Council, the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) near Derna.

On Nov. 16, IS attacked the PFG and killed three members. The Islamic State claimed it attacked an LNA unit, not the PFG, in response to recent airstrikes at Derna, which they claimed were from the LNA. The airstrikes were carried out by the United States to kill one of the ISIS leaders in Libya, according to reports. 

Even outside of militias, the ongoing conflict in Libya continues to affect Libyan youth. The instability caused by the split government has put additional security risks and financial concerns on Libyan youth.

“Libyan students abroad who are funded by the government are struggling to continue with their studies as tuition and support funding has been sporadic,” Mneina said. “Libyans inside the country to suffer from delayed salaries and banks unable to withdraw funds. The situation across the board is growing desperate.”

Some, like Farsi, said they believe fighting will continue until the government is restructured. 

“We are the future generation,” Farsi said. “And we are going to represent Libya. We won't put our hands down for the government until everyone takes what they deserve. We are brave people and nice people, and we're not scared of death."