[RFE/RL] Baurzhan Orda, a journalist with Kazakhstan's Khabar news agency, posted on his Facebook page a video showing a devastated young woman during an apparent bride-snatching in Kazakhstan which has gone viral.The clip shows a group of people forcing a head scarf, a presumed sign of betrothal, on an unidentified woman despite her pleas. She appears to be in her teens or perhaps early 20's.
"Let me go! I won't put it on!" she screams as her apparent kidnappers, who include an young man and an older woman, hold her on the floor. At one point, she curses them. The young woman eventually stops fighting long enough for the older woman to put the garment on her head.
The woman tells the traumatized girl, "You blame us like that only because you are angry. We are not offended."
A young man orders someone to "put the holy Koran on the threshold -- if she steps out over it, then let her go."
The older woman tries to convince the exhausted young woman to stay, saying, "We know your parents; we know you. Arai, we are not some strangers. You know us. We knew you would act this way. Not just you, but everyone else is being bride-snatched. There is nothing to fear. You will be our daughter."
Young men are heard to add, "Yes, everyone is bride-snatched. It's fine."
The same journalist posted a similar video on his Facebook account later that day. In that clip, a young woman is carried from a car onto a white carpet, where a head scarf is forced on her. She screams and struggles, but two young men grab her and force her into the house with the help of another young woman. Small children are among those watching the incident, with sweets being thrown in traditional wedding fashion while a romantic Kazakh song about a young girl joining the family of her future husband blares in the background.
Throughout the region, the wearing of a head scarf denotes married status, and the placement of a head scarf on a young woman by a young man's mother suggests that she accepts her into the family. If she spurns the family by leaving the house immediately afterwards, she might well be expected to leave the town, village, or region under a cloud of shame.
But while Kyrgyzstan, for example, has felt obliged to legislate against such traditions, they are not widely practiced in most of Kazakhstan and therefore not legislated against.