The new Member of Parliament in Kazakhstan, Karakat Abden, has put forward a proposal that has unleashed discontent in her country: that of “imposing a tax on Kazakh girls who marry foreigners”. A group of women’s rights activists immediately started collecting signatures for a petition, leading to Abden’s removal from her parliamentary seat.
In her speech on a TV programme, the MP argued that “a ‘Kazakh woman’ is a national talisman, and we cannot lose cede this abroad, which is why I call for a tax on mixed marriages”. The politician had already hinted at this project in last year’s presidential election campaign, when she was listed as a ‘front’ candidate competing against outgoing President Tokaev.
Having become a member of parliament for the social-patriotic Auyl party, Abden claims to have the support of the other deputies in her group. The country’s feminists have risen up against her, who had already marched on 8 March with the slogan ‘we are not your toys’, aimed precisely at those who, like Abden, want to manipulate the role of Kazakh women.
A woman married to a foreigner, Ajžan, who lives with her husband and family in Thailand, intervened on social media: ‘If the MP is hungry for taxes, let her take them from husbands who beat their wives’.