Prelims- Report

Tajikistan: Poverty Encourages Early Marriages

Kibriyo Khaitova when she was 16 her parents told her that if she didn’t marry, she’d soon be a spinster. So, like many girls from Tajikistan, Khaitova married a man her family found for her. Now 20, she has two children, no husband and is fending for herself.

Tajikistan’s widespread poverty is a major cause of early marriage in the country. In rural families, boys become the main breadwinners and girls are often considered financial burdens.

According to Azita Ranjbar, some parents feel that their daughters can be better supported by the husband's family, and marrying them off [early] is a way to conserve their own limited resources.

The groom’s family also has a motive to push their sons to wed young girls. When Tajik girls marry they become “kelins” (daughters-in-law) and usually live with the husband’s family. While an educated woman might challenge the submissive role a kelin is supposed to play, Ranjbar says, “younger girls are seen as more likely to be obedient, assisting their mother-in-law with chores and, in some areas of the country, subsistence farming.”

Since July 2010, Tajik law has said men and women must be 18 years old to marry. But in practice underage marriage is still common. In fact, the law has had an unintended effect: Because couples cannot register a marriage wherein one party is under 18 years of age, many simply have a local religious leader perform the wedding ceremony. Later, without a civil registration certificate, the bride has few rights in the eyes of the courts.

Throughout Tajikistan, there is also a growing dependence on Islam to fulfill functions the wilting state can no longer handle. In many rural areas, where local officials do not have the power or the motivation to help, religious leaders offer solutions for everyday problems. Islamic law supports early marriage, offering families a way out of supporting their daughters.

Moreover, Islamic clerics are often willing to perform the religious ceremony regardless of whether the couple has registered with the state. “The Koran does not define a minimum age for marriage,” said by a Dushanbe imam “Islam encourages women to marry at a young age. This means that they can have children, which is a woman’s duty.”

Women entering polygamous marriages, condoned by Islam but officially banned by the state, also cannot register.

Spousal rape is not uncommon in Tajikistan. According to a 2009 report by Amnesty International, whereas 11.1 percent of men admitted forcing their wives to have sex against their will, 42.5 percent of women report being forced by their husbands.

Today, an upswing in underage marriages means more divorces, Bayzoev adds, “The immaturity of young couples and the forced nature of many marriages have undoubtedly contributed to the growing number of divorces in the country.”

For the complete details of the article, visit :

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65075

===================================================================

Reaction:

"More people, more power", a line that always comes into my mind when poverty is the word. I guess maybe I am thinking of this for majority of the poor people are those who have many siblings in their family.   One of the reasons why some families are too big is because their parents are married early or at a young age. This will cause them to have that urge of sexual contact because they are poor, unemployed and bored. So while they are having pleasure on what they are doing now, in the future their children will face all of the consequence for all those pleasure. There is no wrong in marrying in an early age for me, only if the couple could afford to give their children a bright future and if the parents are mature enough to have a job and make a living. But unfortunately most of the young couple that are married are not that mature enough, some of them were just forced by their parents and some married for maybe they engaged in pre-marital sex. The effects of this early marriage will not be on the parents but on their children.

I am also sad on the fact that they will let their children have the burden of having a family in an early age, this means that those child will not have the freedom to enjoy and treasure every moment of their teenager life. Instead of going to school, having some friends, experiencing the thrill of having an examination, studying every night to have good grades and the happiness of getting a high grade, or in reverse being self-pity for getting low grades, they will now raise their very own children, let them drink milk on their breast, cleaning the poop of their child and finding jobs to pay for all their expenses. 

In the economic side, poverty is one of its problems. A good government with poverty is impossible, so this means when people are raising too much kids, the population will now grow, the more people will consume the products that the producers are producing, and this means that there will be an increase to the price of all those products, and this means inflation. Causing the people of Tajikistan to be poorer and poorer. 

I hope that the people in Tajikistan will be more rational and not traditional. We are now in the modern age of civilization, so their ideas must grow too. Marrying will not help them save their social status, maybe it will just help their parents to get rid of them, but my point is, it will give more problems to the people. The effects of poverty may start to you, but it will always end up to the society.

So if I were this Tajik's I will never marry if it is against my will and budget. For I dont want my children to suffer, I dont want them to experience hunger, I dont want them to have a poor education and last I dont want them to pass their poverty to their next generation.