Jazgul’s Story, Daily Brief December 14, 2023

“I grew up as an orphan. Both my parents died when I was young. My older brother left me with our [maternal] grandparents when he was a teenager. My relatives abused me all the time. Maybe even dogs were treated better than I was…”

Thus begins the testimony of Jazgul, a 27-year-old woman with an intellectual disability and limited mobility from a village in the south of Kyrgyzstan.

I sometimes include more words from survivors in this newsletter, but in this case, I’m wary. The story she details of repeated rape, beatings, and other abuse at the hands of her family members is just too horrific. I’ll link to it here and let the reader decide whether to click.

After years of violence, Jazgul finally escaped this hell, when her brother came to visit and discovered how relatives were mistreating her. She was eventually able to reach the country’s only safehouse for women and girls with disabilities.

Staff there understood the abuse Jazgul had suffered went beyond physical and sexual violence. She had not had any formal education. She’d been kept at home and socially excluded. She had no understanding of personal and menstrual hygiene, could not speak in long sentences, could not write or do math, and resisted attempts to help her.

It took Jazgul about a year to start feeling safe enough to open up and socialize. She has been able to start emerging from the horror, but many women with disabilities in the country are still stuck in it.

Domestic violence against women and girls with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan is serious and widespread. Rape, beatings, neglect, and humiliation are not experiences unique to Jazgul, as a new report documents.

The government has made tackling domestic violence a priority, and it’s even made some progress in recent years. For example, some police officers have received training on communicating with people with various types of disability in responding to reports of domestic violence.

However, police and judicial authorities are still often reluctant to take cases seriously, and Kyrgyz laws don’t take into account the particular needs of women and girls with disabilities, leaving them at risk of continued violence.

Kyrgyzstan can and should do better.

Despite the extreme trauma she suffered – not to mention a speech impairment – Jazgul insisted on telling her story. The least the authorities can do is listen to her and make sure such horrors end throughout Kyrgyzstan.