“I became a kelin when I was 20, still a college student, after meeting my husband-to-be only two to three times before the wedding,” said Shohida Kenjaeva, who currently lives in Germany. A kelin, an Uzbek word for a bride, holds the lowest status in the Uzbek societal hierarchy. They are expected to serve their in-laws and husbands along with taking care of all household chores and children while working and studying.
“I think this was my biggest mistake. I should have gotten married after finishing my studies. It was very difficult for me to juggle the duties of a bride, of a wife and a student. I couldn’t get enough sleep – I had to go to university, which was 70 km away, by bus in the morning at dawn and return in the evening. I would come home tired and still was expected to make dinner. The meal would be ready late and my husband would beat me mercilessly for it.”
Shohida’s story is quite typical. In recent years, Uzbekistan has witnessed a troubling resurgence in early marriages, a practice that disproportionately harms young girls. In June, Kun.uz reported about a wedding in Bukhara of a 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl arranged by their parents, who were later fined. There has been no update on whether the young couple was separated. It is likely that they were not, reflecting a broader societal acceptance of such practices despite its illegal status.
The Family Code of Uzbekistan currently sets the age of marriage at 18. Only in rare cases (pregnancy, birth of a child, emancipation of a minor) can the age of marriage be reduced by one year with a city hakim’s permission. Officially registered marriages of girls under 18 have decreased drastically – from 8,223 in 2010 to only 68 in 2023 – mostly due to the 2019 amendments to the Family Code that increased the age of marriage for girls from 17 to 18.
However, the law has not eradicated marriages under 18. Instead, parents have resorted to marrying off their daughters through informal religious ceremonies known as nikah, without legal registration.
Liliya Achilova and Khurshida Saydivaliyeva’s study on early marriage and births, published by Society, Gender and Family in Central Asia, reported 1,496 births among girls under 18 in 2021, a 56 percent increase compared to 2020. Considering that there were only 92 registered early marriages in 2021 and that young girls rarely become a mother without a husband in Uzbekistan, one can make assumptions about the possible number of unregistered nikahs among teen girls.
Some illegal early marriages come to public attention either through wedding videos shared on social media or news reports about police arrests. These arrests often target parents or imams who conduct unregistered nikah ceremonies, serving as a warning to others.
For example, news about a man from Syrdarya who was fined for arranging a nikah between his son and a girl under 17 made rounds on local media earlier this year. Such unregistered marriages leave young girls without legal protections.
“Since they are minors, their marriages are not considered legal,” explained Kamola Alieva, a lawyer, expert on gender issues, and an associate professor at Tashkent State University of Law. “Protecting the legal rights of a girl as a wife is challenging until she reaches adulthood and formalizes the marriage. In cases of divorce via shariah law (where a husband can divorce a wife by saying a specific word three times), property and other relations between them are not regulated by formal legal frameworks. A bride can only seek child support if the husband was formally registered as the father. If she was registered in the shared household after the nikah, she may attempt to claim a portion of it, but this process is complex and difficult.”
Apart from the legal age cap, 11 years of mandatory education (rather than the previous nine years of school followed by a two to three years of college or lyceum) serves as a primary measure preventing young girls from being married off before 18 or becoming a teenage mother. The Ministry of Public Education branded schooling as a means of exerting “social control.”
Parents are also held accountable if their children are kept from studying, resulting in some girls getting engaged before 18 but not actually marrying until after they graduate and reach the legal age.
Over the last decade, the proportion of girls marrying at just 18-19 has steadily increased. In 2015, only 21 percent of brides were in this age group; by last year, the figure had risen to 36 percent with over 102,000 brides nationwide aged 18-19.
Early marriage has always been a part of Uzbek patriarchal culture. Girls are seen as a burden to families since they do not bring in material support for their parents or look after them in their late years. Many families see it as more reasonable to invest in their sons and “get rid” of their daughters. Since the country’s independence, traditional values along with Islamic ones encouraging marrying young have re-emerged and the process has accelerated with the new government’s more tolerant approach to religious practices.
The increasing popularity of social media platforms has heightened parents’ urgency to marry off their daughters sooner. Traditionally, girls are expected to marry as a virgin and preferably with no history of dating. Parents are getting increasingly anxious about their daughters’ future prospects of finding a good match in an age of sharing personal information on social media and sexting, exposure viewed as threatening the family’s honor.
“Social pressure also plays a significant role,” confirmed Alieva. “In some remote areas, we observe how parents rush to marry off their daughters simply because girls appear old enough. If a good candidate from a reputable family shows interest, parents often give away their minor daughters to secure the match.”
Arranged marriages remain popular in Uzbekistan, and forced marriages still occur. A 2021 study by the Mahalla and Family Research Institute surveyed 250 teenage girls who married or gave birth early. Among the respondents, 70 percent indicated that their parents were responsible for their marriages, while only a quarter married for love. Early marriages have not only negatively affected the brides’ health (38.2 percent), but their relationship with their parents too (22.9 percent). The majority of young brides also reported that they did not continue their studies after marriage – 17 percent by their own choice, while almost 40 percent cited objections from their in-laws and husbands.
“I myself married when I was 20 and faced many hardships at such an early age,” said Sayyora, a 42-year-old mother from Tashkent who asked not to use her real name, fearing for her reputation and that of her daughter. “The groom we chose for my daughter was from a good family and my daughter herself liked him. So, we married her off when she was just 20. She married into a rich family and now has to take care of two big houses. Her academic performance has dropped. She has to do all bridal duties in the morning despite her pregnancy and only then does she rush to college.
“I very much regret marrying her off so early. The worst part is, I don’t see happiness in her eyes anymore.”
Early marriages, especially arranged and forced ones, confine many girls to their homes, where they serve their in-laws and are vulnerable to various forms of abuse. In 2022, the Family and Women Research Institute surveyed female victims of gender-based violence in five regions of Uzbekistan. The findings revealed that 39.9 percent of respondents married through sovchilik, a traditional matchmaking practice initiated by parents and other older relatives, 33.9 percent married based on mutual interest, while 21 percent married due to their parents’ will.
“My parents, especially my mother, feel very guilty,” reflected Shohida, discussing her divorce. It was initiated by her mother-in-law just a month after her wedding. “‘We made you miserable,’ they often say. But I don’t think it is my parents’ fault. They just wanted me to be happy. Yet, I still feel the pain of those beatings. My whole body hurts. I am afraid to ever get married again.”
A deeper reason for the pursuit of young brides lies in the growing scarcity of eligible girls. Uzbekistan, with a population of just over 37 million, exhibits an overall balanced male-to-female ratio. But this balance is disrupted among eligible youth; there are slightly fewer girls in Uzbekistan than boys. This gap has been widening, with only 954 girls aged 20-29 per 1,000 men in the same age category as of 2024.
In the 15-29 age group, there are 200,000 fewer girls than boys – a staggering 100 percent increase compared to 2011. Moreover, men from older age groups also seek to marry girls under 30, intensifying the competition for young brides.
Polygamy is also on the rise. While the exact number of polygamous marriages remains unknown, some report it to be in the hundreds of thousands. Although many women agree to become a second wife due to social pressure and financial troubles, the majority of them are young, under 35.
The scarcity is further exacerbated as many Uzbek girls choose to marry foreigners, particularly Turkish nationals. In 2019 alone, 1,559 women from Uzbekistan married citizens of Turkey.
This shortage drives parents to find a bride quickly, regardless of her young age, fearing they might not be able to secure a suitable match for their sons later on.
“Administrative punishment for marrying off an underaged young is very light – a fine of a couple of hundred dollars,” explained Alieva. “Further criminalization of early marriages is not a solution. There should be a complex set of measures on the ground, including various awareness raising programs about the consequences of early marriage in mass media, forming legal awareness and legal culture, and resolving economic problems in society.”
“Girls should get education first,” said Shohida. “Let them get married only when they finish their studies and can provide for themselves. Only then will they not depend on someone or tolerate the mother-in-law’s complaints or the husband’s violence.”
The demographic changes and re-emergence of traditional values in Uzbekistan, however, point to a further surge of early marriages, if not illegal ones, for the coming years.
The author thanks the TalTech Law School at Tallinn University of Technology for providing the opportunity to participate as a fellow in Caucasus and Central Asia Research Social Innovation: Development Assistance, Innovation and Societal Transformation project that allowed her to work on this piece.