Early marriages on the rise, say experts

Officials and experts have expressed concern over early marriages in Kyrgyzstan, a tendency observed in most of the country's rural areas. "I got married when I was 15, because I was pregnant," Nazira, a teenage resident of Kyzyl-Suu village in the northeastern province of Ysyk-Kol, told IRIN. "I didn't know that such relations could lead to a birth of a child. I got to know that I was pregnant when it was too late," she added. In order to hide her shame, she had to get married. Osipa Usenbayeva, the headmistress of the Lenin school in the Kyzyl-Suu village, told IRIN there were many similar incidents. "On average, 10 to 15 girls from our school a year get married," she said, noting that there were 20 girls in each class. "I couldn't say whose fault it is, whether it was the fault of parents who failed to take proper care of their daughters or our fault for not informing them about sexual relations between men and women," she added. According to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) mid-term review report of its country programme in Kyrgyzstan 2002, the spread of polygamy, early marriage and segregation and seclusion of women are among the most alarming tendencies observed in the ex-Soviet republic. Some local analysts noted that there was an increasingly growing number of young girls, especially in peripheral rural areas, getting married before the age of 18, citing economic difficulties and grinding poverty as the root cause. For example, very often rural parents have to decide whom among their children to send to school, and in such situations boys usually receive precedence, while girls are married off as a means of paying the fees. "I have six children - four daughters and two sons. My elder daughter finished high school last year, but if it were up to me I would get her married after she is 16, because I cannot provide for her education," Guljan Namazova, a schoolteacher in Svetlaya Polyana village in Jeti-Oguz District of Ysyk-Kol, told IRIN. However, parents often ignore the fact that their daughters are immature and therefore too young to bear children, with the result that early marriages often end up in divorce - about 70 percent according to some estimates. Another problem is premarital sex resulting in pregnancy, as illustrated by the example cited of the girl in Kyzyl-Suu village, where the number of young girls becoming pregnant and having to get married has increased over the last two years due to ignorance of basic contraceptive methods. Meanwhile, some doctors and gender experts say early marriages can result in unhealthy mothers and children, an adverse trend in the context of a nation's gene pool being preserved in the application of the fundamental principle of healthy mother: healthy child: healthy nation. Commenting on the issue, Gulnara Kadyrkulova, the UNFPA project coordinator of the country's reproductive health sub-programme, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek, that early marriages could occasion not only miscarriages but also high rates of maternal and infant mortality. During the Soviet era and to some extent in the early post-Soviet period, women in Kyrgyzstan formed an educated and literate component of the population, with their level of literacy in rural areas close to urban indicators. Some local analysts have warned that preventing girls from obtaining secondary and higher education could result in their further alienation from the decision-making process in all spheres of life - political, economic, social and cultural. According to the Kyrgyz national statistical committee, young people aged between 14 and 34 - about 65 percent of them living in rural areas - constitute almost 40 percent of the country's overall population. This highlights the importance of conducting awareness-raising and education activities on the issue of early marriage among the youth in the countryside.