Leveraging ICTs: Central Asian women's agency in the context of bride kidnapping

While technofeminist interventions have contributed to growing efforts to combat violence against women through ICTs, research on how these technologies impact women's agency in the context of bride kidnappings remains scarce. This gap is significant, given that bride abductions are practiced across diverse cultural contexts—including parts of Central Asia, Africa, the Caucasus, Southeast Asia, and among some Romani and traveller communities in Eastern Europe. This study presents a first attempt to address this void by exploring how urban, Russian-speaking Kazakh and Kyrgyz women leverage ICTs in the context of bride kidnappings through a decolonial feminist research lens. Methodologically, the study uses an interpretative qualitative framework that features analysis of 14 focus group discussions and 20 individual interviews conducted with Russian-speaking Kazakh and Kyrgyz women residing in the Central Asian cities of Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) in 2022. The findings suggest that urban, Russian-speaking Kyrgyz and Kazakh women use ICTs in two ways to enhance their agency in the context of bride kidnappings: as tools for digital activism to raise awareness and pressure law enforcement, and as personal safety aids to prevent, escape, and document violence, shifting accountability to the abductor. While these results underscore the empowering potential of ICTs, their benefits remain unevenly distributed across urban and educational lines, highlighting the need for future feminist research that explores the experiences of rural, less-privileged women.