Kazakhstan bans bride kidnappings, pressured marriages

Kazakhstan has banned pressured marriages and bride kidnappings by a regulation that got here into impact on Tuesday (September 16, 2025) within the Central Asian nation, the place the observe persists regardless of new consideration being paid to ladies’s rights.

Forcing somebody to marry is now punishable by as much as 10 years in jail, Kazakh police mentioned in a press release.

“These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have additionally been outlawed.

“Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police mentioned.

There aren’t any dependable statistics of pressured marriage circumstances throughout the nation, with no separate article within the prison code prohibiting it till now.

A Kazakh lawmaker mentioned earlier this 12 months that the police had obtained 214 such complaints over the previous three years.

The customized can be current in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, the place it largely goes unpunished as a consequence of detached regulation enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

The problem of girls’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media consideration in 2023 following the homicide of a girl by her husband, a former Minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Mr. Tokayev mentioned final 12 months.