Asel Nogoibaeva sits up in her hospital bed, with her mutilated face hidden behind bandages so only her eyes can be seen.
In a hushed voice, she recounts the day last month when her ex-husband turned longstanding abuse and threats into a vicious attack at the home she shared with her sons in Selektsionnoye, in northern Kyrgyzstan.
“He hit me twice on the head with his fists, then began to strangle me,” she says. “I heard my youngest son screaming and crying, then I lost consciousness. I woke up on the kitchen floor. Everything was covered in blood.”
Nogoibaeva could not work out where the blood was coming from. It was only later that she found out that her ex-husband had cut off her nose and ears.
The perpetrator, Azamat Estebesov, is now in prison, but Nogoibaeva is sad and angry that he was not jailed earlier. Instead, he had been given probationary sentences for previous threats, rape and violence against her.
“Why in Kyrgyzstan should all cases concerning violence against women be resolved only after someone suffers, dies or becomes crippled for life? Does the judicial system even work? Why should we seek protection from journalists, society?” she asks.
Nogoibaeva’s is just the latest of many similar cases of femicide and violence against women in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous central Asian country where activists say public indifference is exacerbating the problem. Campaigners at the Femicide in Kyrgyzstan project have identified at least 300 murders of women – at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends or former partners – between 2008 and 2020. In 70% of the cases, the killer attempted to dispose of the body to hide the crime, they said.
During the first eight months of 2023, 8,512 cases of domestic violence were officially registered, according to the ministry of internal affairs. Just 2% have gone to trial. In 2022, only 2,709 of 6,580 registered domestic violence cases went to trial.
Nurbek Toktakunov, a lawyer and civic activist, says the problem is more about attitudes rather than the legal framework. “We need to work at the level of creating certain traditions in the law enforcement system, to hold law enforcement officials responsible for negligence,” he says.
Public attention on cases can help, but the topic is quickly forgotten afterwards, he adds. Police who were fired after mishandling domestic abuse cases where a woman was later murdered have been reinstated in their jobs once the attention has died down.
Nogoibaeva gave the authorities plenty of chances to act. She filed for divorce in 2017, saying that her husband’s religious fundamentalism led him to forbid her from working and suggesting their two children should not study.
Estebesov did not consent and she moved to Italy to get away from him. In 2022 she returned to Kyrgyzstan, bought a house with her savings and lived with the children. Immediately, Estebesov began harassing her, issuing death threats.
“I turned to the local police with a statement about the threats. They accepted my appeal, but there was no action,” she says. “Two days after that, he raped me, at night, on the street.”
Estebesov’s family pleaded with her to withdraw her legal claims, and she agreed in exchange for a promise he would leave her alone to raise their sons, aged 10 and 16, without interference. He agreed, but soon broke the terms of the deal. In January this year, he beat her and raped her again.
In August, there was a court hearing against Estebesov, but he was let off with three years’ probation. Nogoibaeva filed an appeal, but the hearing was postponed until late September on Estebesov’s request.
“I cried with fear, I told the court that two days ago he came to my house and beat me. He said he would kill me, so he’s stalling for time. They didn’t listen to me. Neither the judge nor the prosecutor. The trial was moved to 27 September. On 20 September, he maimed and cut me, making me permanently disabled,” she says.
Nogoibaeva’s life was saved by her 10-year-old son, who screamed so loudly that a neighbour called the police. Since witnessing the attack, the child has stopped speaking from shock.
Nogoibaeva will need to have several operations in Kyrgyzstan before, she hopes, raising the money through crowdfunding to have treatment from plastic surgery specialists in Turkey. The cost is enormous.
Estebesov is now in prison after the court cancelled his probationary sentence for his previous attacks and jailed him for eight years. The latest attack on Nogoibaeva could lead to his sentence being extended.
Asel Nogoibaeva: ‘I cried with fear. I told the court that he came to my house and said he would kill me, but they didn’t listen.’ Photograph: Aigerim Turgunbaeva
Her lawyers and relatives are calling for an investigation into the actions of the judge who released Estebesov. They also want an explanation as to why police ignored her complaints after he had broken the terms of five restraining orders in the past year.
The case has caused a debate in Kyrgyzstan, with a lot of sympathy for the family but also criticism of them for going public. Shortly after Nogoibaeva spoke out, one MP, Mirlan Samyikozho, said such cases should not be discussed publicly. “It is necessary to control where such information comes from and who distributes it,” he told parliament.
Tinatin Kataganova, Nogoibaeva’s mother, says only public outrage could change the culture of violence in the country. “Some MPs say we should not give interviews and not talk about what happened. Why should we be silent? After all, it is the judicial system that is to blame for the fact that my daughter went through so much and was on the verge of death. The judge must be punished,” she says.
She adds that while there may be a public outcry over individual cases, many people in the country accept that violence and humiliation of women by their husbands are simply facts of life.
Source : The Guardian