How bout some early Monday morning polygamy talk? Radio Free Europe reports that the Kazak parliament has been debating a new draft law that would allow any man who is able to meet his second and third wife's financial needs and obtain their consent can have multiple marriages. The parliament has debated this issue before without passing and implementing a law and from the looks of it there is a fair amount of opposition to the legislation to keep it from passing, but the practice of polygamy does exist and their are some demographic and rational reasons for it be formalized in the law.
All of the Central Asian states have experienced polygamy throughout their history, as it allowed in the Islamic religion and culture, and after the fall of the Soviet Empire it reportedly enjoyed a resurgence. Kazakhstan decriminalized the practice in 1998, but all of the other CA states still treat it as a crime, though one rarely prosecuted. Women's groups in Kazakhstan do not support ‘polygamy’ per se, but they do desire that these 2nd and 3rd wives have protection under the law, which they have none of as of right now. Polygamy does provide one answer the demographic challenges facing most of the CA nations as it allows financially stable men to take on more than one poor, destitute women and provide for them and their children. For instance, in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where a large amount of the male population travels abroad for employment and has many men who may never come back, some people say that the ability for a man of wealth to take more than one wife ‘benefits’ wives and children. We’ll have to see how far the Kazak parliament goes in formalizing this type of marriage.
Here are some other pertinent religious and cultural pieces from Forum 18, a great watchdog publication for the region's human and religious rights;
1. “Why can't all religious communities have places of worship?” – examines Turkmenistan's government's refusal to let non-Islamic religions have a place to worship.
2. “Kazakhstan: Alarm at state-backed planned new Religion Law” – discusses a planned law restricting ‘freedom of thought’ and penalizing ‘unapproved’ religious activities.
3. “Kazakhstan: A law on Non-Freedom of Conscience” – discusses the same law as above, but in greater detail. And here's the latest update on the law's possible passing with some modifications.
(Photo: Radio Free Europe)
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