‘Bride kidnapping’ haunts rural Kyrgyzstan, causing young women to flee their homeland

Erin Hofmann and Guangqing Chi have published an article in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies about bride kidnapping and gendered labor migration in Kyrgyzstan. Their main findings are:

"Kidnap households are more likely to include women migrants, compared to other households. Kidnap households are also more likely to be receiving remittances, even when controlling for migrant household members. However, traditional beliefs about kidnapping are negatively associated with men’s and women’s migration. While higher levels of remittance receipt among kidnap households resembles the unified, patriarchal households envisioned in the New Economics of Labour Migration, it also appears that women use labour migration as a means to escape patriarchal constraints. We demonstrate that forced marriage in Kyrgyzstan plays a larger social role than is often believed, and highlight a new pathway through which gendered power dynamics can shape household migration strategies."

This study has already been reported by The Conversation, titled "‘Bride kidnapping’ haunts rural Kyrgyzstan, causing young women to flee their homeland."