Project Addressing Early Marriages

Increasing resilience to marginalization among women and girls in Kyrgyzstan through effective implementation of the country’s gender commitments

Project overview: UNDP Gender program is committed to address early marriages issues in Kyrgyzstan, therefore, it has been implementing projects tackling this issue since 2016.  The initial project on “Combatting Early Marriages, Bride-Kidnapping and GBV Practices in Kyrgyzstan” was implemented in 2016. During these initiatives a number of activities conducted to support the development and endorsement of the new “Law on prohibiting underage religious marriages” in November 17, 2016. Later in 2017, Gender program’s project on Supporting implementation of the new law in Kyrgyzstan on preventing early marriages and reducing violence against underage women was realized accordingly as continuation of the efforts on supporting the Law.

Project on “Increasing resilience to marginalization among women and girls in Kyrgyzstan through effective implementation of the country’s gender commitments” as a logical continuation of all previous efforts in addressing early marriages. The project supported the development of bylaws and normative acts to be in line with international standards ensuring relevant state authorized bodies to apply legal acts in Law implementation.

It is worth to mention that Gender program success in promoting Law implementation is taking place with the support and partnership of state institutions, CSO, expert community and interested stakeholders.

Main components of the project:

OUTPUT 1: Bylaws and normative acts are developed, in line with international standards and submitted to relevant State Authorities for approval, with relevant trainings delivered to enable effective implementation, the Implementation Plan on early marriage 2017-2018 is monitored and on the basis of the recommendations, a new draft Plan for 2019-2020 is developed

OUTPUT 2: Increased capacity and understanding of religious leaders to lead awareness raising campaigns in local communities on the law prohibiting underage religious marriages

OUTPUT 3: Increased general public awareness of the problems on early marriages, especially those in remote cross border areas, through civil society campaigns

Project Results:

Project supported implementation of the Law on prohibiting underage religious marriages building capacity of relevant State Authorities to implement the Law effectively with the involvement of civil society, and religious institutions jointly performing National Action Plan on preventing early marriages.

1. Joint act on inter-agency (multilateral, bilateral) interaction on prevention and response to violations of the Law (Family Code, article 14, paragraph 3, and the Criminal Code, Article 155-1) developed and adopted accordingly, implemented by Ministry of Labour and Social Development (MLSD)

• Ministry of Labour and Social Development led the facilitation of the Law implementation in a systematic way, to nurture the accountability of all authorized and responsible state institutions. An interagency state working groups was established and authorized to coordinate the implementation of the NAP

2.  Methodological recommendations for religious organizations to perform religious marriage ceremonies approved by State Commission on Religious Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic following the Law.

• Methodological recommendations for religious organization to perform religious marriages developed with the assistance of interagency working group through consultations with the State Commission on Religious Issues and Muftiyat. During the project implementation, recommended instructions were introduced and integrated in  Naryn, Issyk-Kol and Talas.

3. The methodology for investigating crimes under Article 155-1 (new 178) of the Criminal Code developed, approved and institutionalized at the level of  training curriculum of Academy of Ministry of Internal Affairs.  Ministry of Internal Affairs trained 1527 investigators (76F /1451M)

• Developed manual on methodology was integrated into the training curriculum of Ministry of Internal Affairs.

4. Instructions for hot-line operators were developed and integrated into the Emergency Operational Services of the Ministry of Emergency of the Kyrgyz Republic as a response to appeals on early marriage issues.

• Instructions will be further institutionalized and integrated into internal regulative normative acts and functional responsibilities of the operators.

5. The State Commission on Religious Issues trained religious leaders on the understanding of the Law on prohibiting underage religious marriages. In total 40 (20 F/ 20M) religious leaders trained (20 (10F/10M) religious leaders trained during ToT, 20 (10F/10M) capacitated by peer training and coaching approach)

6. Public information campaigns on the Law.

• The State Commission on Religious Issues with CSO support conducted 106 informational activities, directly covering 31,882  people across the country, (8,700M/3,182F).
• Ministry of Labor and Social Development with support of CSOs conducted informational campaigns in cross border areas covering directly  873 people (506F/ 367M).

In total: 2, 408 214 people reached out indirectly (52% F/ 48%).

7. Distribution of the developed by the Project media products

• 30 700 printed materials were distributed with the help of Ministry of Labour and Social Development, Ministry of Education.

“Abduction” short film, “Early gone cranes” documentary, music clip “Kyz Kadyry”, addressing prevention of underage marriages were distributed among national and commercial TV channels by the Ministry of Culture, Information and Tourism of Kyryz Republic.

Status: Completed

Start date: 2018

Projected end date: 2019

Geographic coverage: 7 regions of the country  

Subject area:  Addressing early marriages

Project coordinator: Bermet Ubaidillaeva

Partners: Ministry of Labour and Social Development of Kyrgyz Republic, Ministry of Education, State Committee for Religious Affairs and Muftiyat.

Funding Source: British Embassy

Budget: 80,000 £