A village in a remote corner of southern Kyrgyzstan is experiencing a shocking rash of suicides among married women.
According to reporting by the BBC Kyrgyz service, all the women who took their lives in Andarak, a settlement of around 8,000 people in the Batken region, were ethnic Tajiks with Kyrgyz citizenship.
Determining the ultimate causes of the despair that drives people to such desperate measures is complicated. Members of the community highlight the social and economic difficulties shared by all the victims.
“The other day I was in Andarak to attend the funeral of a young mother to two children who are now orphans,” Zulaiho, who lives in the village of Maksat, told Eurasianet.
In Zulaiho’s telling, the woman’s husband emigrated to Russia last year after their home was destroyed during a bout of unrest on the border with Tajikistan. The man has purportedly abandoned his family and settled down in Samara, a city in southern Russia, with another woman, which is why Zulaiho described the children as orphans. Meanwhile, his wife was back in Andarak, sharing a house with her in-laws and three other families, all with several children too.
“Each family lives to one room. A common kitchen is shared by women. The only toilet they have is on the street, everyone has to stand in line to use it,” Zulaiho told Eurasianet.
Domestic strife in such packed households is commonplace.
There is a bureaucratic and political dimension to this issue.
As Emil Zhoroyev, the head of the Sumbulinsk rural district in which Andarak is situated, told Eurasianet, the lack of available residential land means that many extended families are compelled to live under one roof.
“There are some houses where three, four or even more families have to live together,” he said. “The issue of classifying land for housing construction for young families has been raised [with the government]. But this process has been temporarily put on ice due to the unfinished demarcation and delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.”
Fighting between communities and armed forces in disputed areas along the border of north Tajikistan and south Kyrgyzstan over recent years have claimed hundreds of lives and caused significant destruction. Somewhat against expectations, though, demarcation talks do appear to have made progress in the last few weeks. On December 12, the heads of the security services of the two countries jointly announced that agreement had been reached on charting 90 percent of the border.
Until all sticking points have been resolved, however, housing issues will likely persist.
In the meantime, Zhoroyev said local authorities are working with activist groups, women’s councils and community elders to try and tackle the suicide epidemic.
The scale of the phenomenon was laid bare by lawmaker Zhanar Akayev in a speech to parliament last month. He told the chamber that nine of the 12 women in Andarak who tried to commit suicide were successful.
Akayev too placed these happenings in the context of overcrowded households and land shortages.
“In the Zhany-Zhersk rural district and in the village of Andarak, land is in short supply. There are 300 hectares (3 square kilometers) of readily available land there. If it were reclassified, 2,700 people could get access to plots,” he said. “Land plots there are more expensive than in Bishkek. That’s why people have to migrate, and women are taking their own lives: some drink vinegar, and others hang themselves because so many families live under one roof.”
Aigul Matikeyeva, a volunteer at a community group agitating for community cohesion, spies nervousness among the authorities behind the reluctance to address land reclassification.
“This topic has not yet been discussed by the local authorities for fear that Tajikistan may perceive this as a provocation. As a result, everyone is forced to sit quietly and remain silent, because they are afraid that they may be prosecuted for discrediting the current position of the authorities,” Matikeyeva said.
Damira Yusupova, a police spokeswoman in the Batken region, said that investigations into suicides have often led to the conclusion that “social instability” was a determining factor.
“Women who committed suicide experienced social difficulties in those houses where they lived in close quarters with other daughters-in-law, and nephews and nieces. Some of them have husbands who migrate to Russia to work,” Yusupova said.
Yusupova demurred when it came to offering a more specific diagnosis, however, indicating only that the ages of the victims in Andarak ranged from 20 to 43.
Rajabali Kurbonov lives in Maksat, but his daughter married a man from Andarak. Speaking to Eurasianet, the villager candidly admitted that he and his wife rarely visit their daughter because of the tension in their household.
“There are several daughters-in-law living in the same house, and quarrels occur between their children, which leads to conflicts. And the government is not helping them in any way,” he said.
Looking to the future, Kurbonov, 63, said he worries that unless the suicide outbreak is stopped now, it may develop into a persisting trend.
“If this continues, then where are the guarantees that other young women will not follow the example of those who have already committed suicide?” he asked.
Source : Eurasianet
