Culture, Gender and Human Rights: The Impact of Cultural Family Values on Legal Capabilities of Women in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

Women in Kyrgyzstan are often limited in their ability to exercise their economic, political, cultural and social rights despite the existing legal guarantees. Moreover, every second female here is a subject to some type of abuse or discrimination. However, most of the time, it is not the political will or the law that is in the root of the problem, but certain cultural family values that are implanted in and reinforced by the society. The values instilled often restrain and control the scope of women’s activities within their households; females considered to be responsible for a durable and peaceful marriage, enduring the consequences of a divorce and violence at home. Thus, women not only silently accept violence, but often support it as most of the members of the society. Hence, they play a paradoxical role: they are oppressed by the culture, but at the same time, they reinforce and support it. Meanwhile the state institutions, designed to protect are unable to confront its own stereotypical attitudes towards women and their role in a family. The current thesis illustrates how gendered dimension of human rights is being confronted by cultural family values and practices. It aims to show the individual, societal and institutional attitudes behind the gendered violence and their impact on legal capabilities of women in the country. Seventeen semi-structured interviews with victimized women, public officials and experts on the topic will test the following assumptions: women resist exercising their rights because: (1) women themselves fall victims of certain cultural values and practices, (2) of societal pressure and fear of stigmatization, (3) of institutional impotency to confront androcentric attitudes among state employees. Domestic violence, bride kidnapping and male polygamy are used as exemplifying cases to build the theory.