State restrictions and gender-based violence in cross-border marriages: The case of Kyrgyz women in Türkiye

Abstract

This paper focuses on Kyrgyz women in cross-border marriages under Türkiye’s increasingly tight legal requirements for marriage migration. Although the main intention of the policy change was to prevent marriages contracted to gain residency permits in Türkiye, strict regulations can have an adverse effect on migrant women’s position. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 key informants including Kyrgyz women, public employees, lawyers and staff of the Kyrgyz Consulate, this paper argues that legal and social difficulties weaken women’s position in cross-border marriages and render them vulnerable to male violence. Under the strict control, migrant women embrace traditional gendered roles such as becoming religious and a “good housewife,” having children as well as limiting their social relationships. Moreover, women do not seek official support against any male violence especially during the time of obligatory marriage period of three years to be able to apply for a citizenship.

Keywords

marriage migration cross-border marriage migrant women gendered migration violence against migrant women Kyrgyzstan Türkiye

Introduction

Marriage migration has become visible in Türkiye among gendered migration flows in the last decades. The numbers and scholarship suggest that marriage has become an option for a secure stay in Türkiye where it is difficult to access resident and work permits (Ekiz-Gökmen, 2011; Yükseker, 2003; Bloch, 2017; Deniz, 2020). In every year of the last decade, more than 20,000 migrants have gotten married in Türkiye (four to five percent of all marriages) (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2020). Post-Soviet women from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan make up the biggest share followed by Syrian women (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2022). The increase in the number of cross-border marriages is often related to Türkiye’s increasing restrictions on migrants. Türkiye has changed migration legislation since the early 2000s and amended policies concerning the admission of tourists, work and resident permits, and marriage through citizenship (see Table 1). With the new changes, the country has tightened border controls, adopted new rules for resident permits and imposed restrictions on marriages under the influence of its European Union (EU) membership process and to prevent unwanted migration. Since 2003, the application for citizenship through marriage requires a three-year waiting period in marriage (previously, there was no waiting period) and a detailed investigation of the couples. These requirements were introduced to prevent marriage of convenience and the trafficking of women (Erder and Kaşka, 2003; Presidency of Migration Management, 2020), but the effects of these policy changes on migrant women and cross-border marriages have not been studied extensively. This paper examines migrant women’s marriage experiences through a case study of Kyrgyz women, with a view to identifying the risk of gender-based violence in marriages that may be associated with the new regulations.

Table 1.

Changes in migration legislation in Türkiye, 2003–2016.

Year	Title	Key provisions
2003	Law on Work Permits of Foreigners	Defined foreigners’ access to the local labor market
2003	The Citizenship Law	Amendments to the acquisition of Turkish citizenship through marriage migration
2009	The Citizenship Law	Further amendments on the acquisition of Turkish citizenship through marriage migration
2012	Tourist Visa Regulation	Defined requirements and length of stay of tourist visa holders
2013	Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP)	Defined rights and living conditions for different migrant groups
2016	The Law on International Labor	Defined acquisition of work permits for migrants

Sources: The Citizenship Law (2009), LFIP (2013) and The Official Gazette (2016).

Based on empirical research, this paper argues that although migrant women actively make decisions to marry, structural, social and gendered difficulties shape and weaken their position in cross-border marriages. The regulations and state surveillance lay the ground for male control and domestic violence in cross-border marriages as getting divorced before the obligatory marriage period of three years will mean losing the chance of citizenship in Türkiye. To cope with these difficulties, women adopt different tactics such as being obedient housewives, becoming religious, having children and limiting their social relationships. Furthermore, migrant women are not willing to access official support mechanisms against male violence, especially during the obligatory marriage period. Referencing Kandiyoti’s (1988) concept of “bargaining with patriarchy,” it can be argued that women actively or passively resist patriarchal norms and rules by embracing traditional gender roles which also make cross-border marriages possible for women.

Marriage migration and post-Soviet women in Türkiye

Marriage-related migration covers different practices and can be defined by different concepts such as family reunification, cross-border marriage, transnational marriage or so-called “mail order brides” depending on the context. Although it has a long history, new forms of marriage migration are on the rise since the early 1990s both in Western states and in the Global South (Charsley, 2012; Constable, 2005; Lu and Yang, 2010; Williams, 2012). In the new forms of marriage migration, marriage brokers, mobile applications and social media play a facilitating role in creating transnational intimacies which have been emphasized in various studies (Constable, 2003; Del Rosario, 2005; Lu and Yang, 2010; Mallare, 2006). New concepts also refer to networks and spaces. For example, while the term “cross-border marriage” refers to geographical, national, racial, class, gender and cultural borders, transnational marriage refers to a broader concept of transnational networks and spaces in which “transactions of economic resources, symbols and political and cultural practices between sending and receiving communities” occur (Lu and Yang, 2010: 25).

This growing scholarship classifies marriage-related migration as part of the feminization of migration flows as it is difficult to separate it from the broader demand for migrant women’s labor (Charsley, 2012; Lu and Yang, 2010). Migrant women meet the labor demand in gendered segments of the labor market as domestic workers, entertainers, low-waged manufacturing workers, service sector workers or workers in the commercial sex industry. Among these gendered migration flows, marriage has become one of the options for women in the face of increasing difficulties in accessing work and resident permits, especially in the more developed countries. Marriage migration is part of global power structures and hierarchies that not only affect women’s migration decisions, but also their positions within the family or in transnational intimacies. Studies suggest the increasing politicization of marriage migration and the consequent stricter practices by states requiring migrant spouses to earn their citizenship (Charsley, 2012). Policy discourse against forced or “fake” marriages legitimizes the increasing controls of states on marriage migration. The specific legal requirements and restrictions on cross-border marriages vary from country to country depending on the state’s position within the global power hierarchies. These practices might include the registration of marriage long before the visa application, proving enough financial support from the citizen spouse, and on the part of the foreign spouse, health clearance and language competency. Application for marriage visas is an increasingly complex process and requires other immigration documents as well as additional paperwork, such as obtaining and validating birth certificates, passports, divorce decrees and others. These policies and practices also render migrant women spouses more dependent on their citizen husbands and vulnerable in both the domestic and public sphere. For example, in Denmark, Jørgensen (2012) shows that migrant spouses become economically and legally dependent on the Danish spouse to remain in the country. Under the strict control of the state, many women feel constrained to stay in violent marriages rather than face deportation and potentially lose custody of their children (Jørgensen, 2012). Restrictions placed by states on citizenship and residence status shape the experience of cross-border marriage migrants in the country of residence and their roles within the family (Williams, 2012). Liversage (2012) argues that traditional gender roles are reinforced when the migrant spouse is a woman while it is undermined when men migrate as a spouse.

Türkiye’s restrictions on migrants also work as a primary mechanism in shaping intimate practices and marriages between local men and post-Soviet women who seek to secure their stay in Türkiye (Ekiz-Gökmen, 2011; Yükseker, 2003; Bloch, 2017; Deniz, 2020). While the globalization of capitalism through neo-liberal restructuring policies after the Soviet era created new forms of precarity among disadvantaged groups and encouraged “feminised mobility” (Bloch 2017: 4–11), new trade opportunities and the demand for migrant women’s labor in Türkiye has also contributed to the new forms of mobility of post-Soviet women to Türkiye. Research shows how the structural and gendered difficulties in both post-Soviet states and Türkiye combine and push women to make a decision about intimacy (Bloch, 2011; Yükseker, 2003). The term “intimacy” does not only cover marriages or sexual relationships but also social, emotional and personal relationships in a broader sense. According to Constable (2003), it is difficult to distinguish personal areas, such as emotions and sexual needs, from political areas such as pragmatic motives in these transnational intimacies. For example, Deniz and Özgür (2021) argue that cross-border marriages between post-Soviet women and local men started to take place in the mid-1990s when the Turkish government changed its policies towards controlling informal business between these two regions. Marriage was a shortcut solution to state restrictions on migrants doing business between the two regions and a way to access secure residence, especially for post-Soviet women lacking capital (Deniz and Özgür, 2021). Similarly, in the context of Syrian refugee women, marriage to Turkish men can facilitate resettlement and belonging (Akyüz and Tursun, 2019; Yaman, 2020). For post-Soviet women, Yükseker (2003) offers the term “strategic intimacy” as a way of trust building between shuttle-trader post-Soviet women and local shop owners in Laleli, Istanbul, where trade and social relationships were highly dependent on informal relationships. These intimate relationships with local men, either as lovers or in marriages, help women sustain social ties back at home and work to “cement” the exchange of information, goods, remittances and services as women circulate between the two regions (Yükseker, 2003). As Yükseker (2003) and Bloch (2017) show, the lack of available options for regularized status can also motivate long-lasting intimacies and cross-border marriages between post-Soviet women and local men in Türkiye.

Male demand in Türkiye for intimacy with post-Soviet women is another strong element in cross-border marriages. Without doubt, the strong stigmatization of post-Soviet women, who are stereotyped as “easy to access” or “Natasha” (meaning a prostitute or sex worker), has created a huge demand for post-Soviet partners among local men since the early 1990s. In her research on Russian women married to local men in Türkiye, Filiyeva Erkeç (2017) shows how the demand for migrant women’s labor in tourism prompted post-Soviet women’s migration decisions and made marriage possible for many, including women engaged in commercial sex. From the perspective of migrant spouses, Filiyeva Erkeç (2017) and Ekiz-Gökmen (2011: 215) find that marriage with a local man is attractive for women not only to access legal status but also to overcome the stigmatization of post-Soviet women in society. However, studies also show that state restrictions and the lack of integration policies can result in the social exclusion of migrant women and make them dependent on their husbands and potentially vulnerable to different forms of male violence within marriage (Akyüz and Tursun, 2019; Deniz and Özgür, 2021; Ekiz-Gökmen, 2011; Filiyeva Erkeç, 2017).

Although previous studies point out migrant women’s motivations and structural difficulties, the effect of stricter state regulations on their position and coping strategies has not been studied extensively. Based on qualitative research, this paper focuses on migrant women’s experiences and the risk of gender-based violence in cross-border marriages under the recent regime of stricter regulations. Using a case study of Kyrgyz women, data for this paper came from 24 in-depth interviews: 14 were conducted with migrant women from mostly from Kyrgyzstan (one was from Uzbekistan), three with Turkish state authorities, two staff from the Kyrgyz Consulate and five lawyers from City Lawyers’ Associations in Istanbul and Antalya. Informal conversations with some citizen men and women, and academics in the field also helped shed light in understanding these intimacies. We reached most of the respondents through the social networks of Kyrgyz women. We conducted face-to-face and online interviews in the summer (June to August) of 2021 and 2022. Ethics approval for the research was obtained from the Ethical Council of Düzce University. One of the researchers, a professional journalist and a member of the Kyrgyz community in Istanbul, was able to interview women in Kyrgyz language as well as reach their social networks. The interviews were transcribed by students and the data was thematically analyzed with the help of the NVivo program. The research findings are mainly based on Kyrgyz women’s narratives and supported by different sources of information, including those from lawyers, public employees, consulate workers and local men. The next sections present our findings based on respondents’ narratives. The names of the research participants have been changed to protect the identity and privacy of individuals.

Findings

Marriage is not a primary motivation for migration

The Kyrgyz Consulate in Istanbul estimates that more than 27,000 Kyrgyz citizens are living and/or working in Türkiye in 2021 and that most of them are women. Most of them work as domestic care workers, as multilingual tourism workers, as sales representatives in textile as well as petty traders. Among other factors, the change of political regime in 2010 and Russia’s increasing control over migrants from Central Asian countries in the last decade made Türkiye a viable option for many women from Kyrgyzstan where their gendered labor is also demanded.¹ Kyrgyz women are one of the largest migrant groups in cross-border marriages after women from Syria, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2022). Intimacies between Kyrgyz women and local men is visible especially in southern cities like Antalya as well as in Istanbul where migrants from Kyrgyzstan usually work.

We interviewed 14 women in Istanbul and Antalya cities, 11 of whom were married to Turkish men at the time of the interview; we also interviewed three women who were either previously married or were single at the time of the interview. Seven of the 11 married women were officially (civil) married while four women were in religious marriage (imam nikahı) and had a previous marriage experience in Kyrgyzstan or Türkiye. The three unmarried women we interviewed were active in the Kyrgyz community in Istanbul, Antalya and Alanya. One of them owns an employment agency business, another runs a hostel and the third one engages in small-scale trading between Türkiye and Kyrgyzstan. Their experiences of living in Türkiye provided additional insights to the study. Among the 11 married participants, most got married between 2007 and 2015 in Türkiye. Seven of them were previously married before coming to Türkiye and two of them had married twice in Türkiye. Except for two respondents, the rest had either Türkish citizenship or permanent residence.

Respondents were between 32 and 55 years old and mostly came from big cities such as Bishkek or Talas. All the Kyrgyz respondents had children and half of them were in their second or third marriage. The children of the women from their first husbands in Kyrgyzstan remained in the origin country. Except for three women, all of them had university degrees with different majors such as literature, engineering, accountancy and media studies or had attended the police academy. Most of them speak several languages including Russian, Turkish and English. All the women had previously worked in Kyrgyzstan and were economically active in Türkiye before they got married. Prior to their marriage in Türkiye, they had worked as tourism workers, domestic workers, petty traders, interpreters, online teachers or sales assistants.

The interviews with Kyrgyz women suggest that their initial motivation for migration is not marriage. When we asked women about their aspirations, most of them expressed their economic difficulties and gendered responsibilities, such as paying for children’s school expenses, the economic expectations imposed on them and the possibility of marriage. For example, Aruuzat (55 years old, housewife, Turkish citizen) decided to go to Türkiye after her mother’s illness. She had quit her job in the military and went to Türkiye. Some women like Gulce (33 years old, divorced with a daughter, non-Turkish citizen) and Melek (35 years old, divorced with children, non-Turkish citizen) who had previous marriage experience and children in Kyrgyzstan, mentioned that their violent marriages pushed them to migrate. Although unemployment was not the primary reason to migrate, most women complained about the low wages and hard-working environment in Kyrgyzstan. Most respondents were employed in Kyrgyzstan as public employees or as translators, salespersons or accountants in the private sector. The average monthly wage in Kyrgyzstan, as in other Central Asian countries, was around USD 50 which was one-third of the minimum wage in Türkiye in the 2010s, when the majority of respondents came to Türkiye. The stories show that finding a better job is usually accompanied with the desire to find a “better husband.” In another case, Aybike’s (37 years old, English teacher, Turkish citizen) job dissatisfaction with her teaching job and desire to get married encouraged her to migrate.

I was really exhausted both psychologically and bodily, I worked three years in my country. I was single then, my mother told me to get married as I was getting older. I wanted to marry a guy who was a few years older than me, but there are more women than men in Kyrgyzstan. There is male scarcity [in Kyrgyzstan], all of them [men] were married.

With the help of her friend, she decided to go to Antalya, a famous tourist city, in 2013: “She told me to quit my job, so, she bought my ticket, [and advised me] ‘don’t work for a few pennies’” Some respondents said that there are many women who are working as seasonal tourism workers in Antalya then go back to Kyrgyzstan with their savings. Their success stories, such as building houses in Kyrgyzstan or finding someone to marry in Türkiye, encourage other women to migrate. In fact, like Aybike, a few respondents also mentioned the scarcity of marriable men in their hometown as a reason to migrate. This can be explained partly by labor migration to Russia, in which most migrants are men; another reason is rural-urban gender imbalances (i.e., Constable, 2005). In summary, women’s testimonies suggest that gendered responsibilities, low wages and a difficult work environment at home encourage women to migrate for the possibility of “easy earning money” or for the possibility of marriage.

Although migrant women can easily find a job in the gendered segments of the labor market, they have difficulties in staying and accessing permits in Türkiye. There are legal requirements such as having a six-month resident permit before applying for a work permit through an employer and a long bureaucratic process with no guarantee to access (Şenses, 2020), this sometimes leads to marriage being seen as a way to secure a woman’s stay in the country. Batma (55 years old, small-scale trader, permanent resident) explains how she married the owner of the hotel where she used to work in Antalya.

I came to Istanbul in 2007 and then went to Antalya to earn some money from live-in childcare job. I was told that I could earn as much as USD 500 per month but when I went there an agency took USD 300 from me, then they sent me to a boutique hotel outside of Antalya center. I was cleaning the rooms. I had only tourist visa for 30 days and then my visa expired. I applied for a work permit but could not get it as it requires six months resident permit before applying for a work-related permit. I was not informed about this. So, the owner offered me his help. We tried every way to get a work permit, but the police asked me to leave the country, so I became undocumented. […] There was a real estate agency and a Russian speaking boy in Antalya said that the only way we could get resident permit was through marriage. (Batma, 55 years old)

Similarly, Eliza (37 years old owner of an employment agency, Turkish citizen), who came to Türkiye to work in tourism, says that her intention was initially to get papers and she talked openly to her partner that she needed security. These stories show that, despite increasing requirements imposed by the state, marriage is an “accessible” option when women cannot have access to resident or work permits.

“Boy meets girl:” The role of social media

The Internet has an important role as a tool for introduction and correspondence between men and women which might lead to face-to-face meeting (Constable, 2003; Del Rosario, 2005; Williams, 2012). Meeting over social media has also become a common way for post-Soviet women and Turkish men in the last decade (Deniz and Özgür, 2021). Almost half of the respondents met their husbands through social media or through social networks before coming to Türkiye. Without a doubt, there is a strong demand for intimacies with migrant women by men in Türkiye. Ahmet (43 years old, public health worker, Turkish citizen), who was well known by his co-workers for his relationships with “foreign” women in Antalya, reported that there are many men in Antalya who contact women through social media. He told us that men may send hundreds of messages by random search of women on Facebook, like “fishing in a pond.” Despite the risk involved in meeting men online and the stories of violence, women take the initiative and make decisions to connect and engage in intimacy actively.²

The contact between the two parties begins when a woman replies to a message on Facebook. As the chatting develops, it may lead to the offer of a plane ticket to Türkiye. For example, Eliza (37 years old, owner of an employment agency, Turkish citizen) met her future husband though social media and came to Antalya to live with him without even seeing him in person. “There are hundreds of our girls who came here only by meeting on Facebook,” she says. Maya’s (36 years old, current housewife, part-time communications consultant for a political party, Turkish citizen) story is also typical:

I think he found me [on Facebook], liked my photo and sent me a request. I accepted and then replied “do I know you?” Because I wondered why a stranger should send me a friendship request. He replied that he did not know me. So, we started conversing and had a long-distance relationship for a year. I was in Bishkek. I came to Istanbul a few times, he came to Bishkek, then we got married in 2013. (Maya, 36 years old)

Bloch (2017: 10) highlights the need to look at aspirations, intimacy, emotional needs and “imagination of love” that motivate women into marriages. In the case of the research participants, while some women cited their need for a secure stay to work and live in Türkiye and for social protection as a “foreign woman” in the country, some mentioned emotional attachments and desire for love in deciding to marry. It is difficult to distinguish between obligations, emotional attachments and transactions in the intimacy in cross-border marriages. However, when it comes to legal procedures, they must act in accordance with the regulations of the state.

Legal procedures of citizenship through marriage in Türkiye

Getting married in Türkiye is a long and difficult process and marriage to a Turkish citizen does not automatically grant citizenship to the foreign spouse. Following marriage, migrant women either apply for a two- or three-year family resident permit or a short-term resident permit for one year. Although there are more than 116,739 family resident permits issued for migrant spouses as of 21 December 2023 (Presidency of Migration Management, 2023), many migrant spouses stay using a short-term resident permit due to detailed paperwork requirements and bureaucracy to obtain family resident permits.³ Applying for these permits take at least six months and require the following documents: Resident permit (visa), a resident paper, proof of monthly income of the spouse, private health insurance and a clean criminal record in some cases. For those applying for a family permit, they additionally require a birth certificate and marital status paper which must be translated and verified by the apostille system.⁴ Gathering these documents takes time, energy and money from migrant women. Indeed, women usually collect these documents and cover the expenses on their own as their husbands were usually low-waged workers. For example, Eliza (37 years old) had to pay USD 300 to get her document to prove her unmarried status from Kyrgyzstan and spent 2,000 Turkish lira (TRY) (around USD 1,300 in 2011) on documentation and expenses including a visit to Istanbul.

According to the law, the acquisition of Turkish citizenship by marriage requires “living within the unity of family” for at least three years (The Citizenship Law, 2009). The legislation also requires the migrant spouse to have a clear criminal record (Article 16) and to behave in a way “compatible with the unity of marriage.” It can be argued that the latter requirement points to stereotypes of the moral behavior of female migrant spouses and demonstrates the gendered nature of cross-border marriages which mostly involve migrant women and Turkish men. The Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP, 2013) also points to the possibility of “fake marriages” and warns of “not getting married for gaining a resident permit” (Article 35-3c). The law emphasizes that if there is “reasonable doubt” of a fake marriage, the couple can be investigated, and resident permit applications can be rejected (Article 37). These subjective conditions and suspicions mean that couples are subject to investigation for security check and immoral behavior by a local commission (Article 18). In other words, although there is no reference to the gender of the migrant spouse, these measures and restrictions are directed towards women instead of men as the migrant spouse is usually a woman. Deniz and Özgür (2021) explain these restrictions and the control the state takes over migrant women given women’s biological and cultural reproduction roles.

The process involves a detailed investigation headed by the local Registration Office (İl Nüfus Müdürlüğü). The investigation and the interviews are made by a commission consisting of officials from governmental bodies such as the migration department, registration office and the police or gendarmerie. Although there are no standard questions, the financial circumstances of the husband, the migrant spouse’s knowledge of Turkish language and determination to settle down in Türkiye are stated in Article 11 of the Citizenship Law (The Citizenship Law, 2009). During the interrogation, couples are separately questioned by the commission. According to the respondents, they were asked questions such as marriage motivation, how they met their husband before marriage, family income and possessions, information about the husband and relatives, even the dinner they had the day before, the color of their husband’s toothbrush or favorite things. On the official side, experts from Antalya Provincial Directorate of Migration Management explain how they suspect “fake marriages.” They mentioned several indications of a fake marriage: There is an age gap or no common language between couples, visa violation or any visa restriction for the migrant spouse, low income of the husband or marriage within a short time.

During the three-year period of marriage when women are not yet eligible for citizenship, women have to deal with the general assumption that theirs is a marriage of convenience, especially if they come from post-Soviet countries. When couples register with the local Migration Management Office, the police investigation starts. Each year, the police visit the house of the resident, ask the neighbors questions and interrogate the women before extending the resident permit. Maya (36 years old) explains the initial process as follows:

They have to believe that the documents are genuine. They separately question me and my husband. They ask questions such as what did you eat yesterday, what time did he come home, what is your mother-in-law’s name, etc. Then they call him and compare our answers. […] Two months later they visited us at home […] In the final interview they asked me about my husband’s hometown. These men are so professional that they understand as soon as we enter the room (laughing). They asked me if we had children, my son was two months old. Then there was no further question (Maya, 36 years old).

After the interview, there is no timeline on when applicants will know the decision on their application for citizenship. For example, Maya gained her citizenship after one and a half years of her citizenship application (a total of four and a half years in marriage). She says this was the usual timeline in Istanbul. Alia (38 years old) and Aybike (37 years old) also explained that the commission did not ask many questions because they had children. “They asked us how we met, home address and then, the interview was finished,” Aybike said. Although there is no standard questionnaire, it seems that having a child together and being a full-time homemaker, knowing the Turkish language and a clear migration history help women pass the investigation. However, the suspicion of the police and other investigators, unclear definitions of behaviors which may or may not be considered “compatible with the unity of marriage” and women’s commitment to settle, put women under pressure. With these gendered criteria, migrant women are pushed to adopt traditional gender roles in which they are expected to perform their biological and cultural roles. The migration restrictions over fake marriages not only put women under pressure and make them docile migrants, but also make them obedient wives under the supervision of husbands.

Different forms of male violence in cross-border marriages

During the obligatory marriage period of three years, women enter into the strict surveillance of their husbands and relatives. The husbands’ strict control is explained as jealousy by respondents. Although jealousy is usually tolerated in the name of “love,” women’s stories show that the husbands restrict women’s employment, their socializing, clothing and even freedom of movement. For example, Aliya (38 years old, engineer, Turkish citizen), says that her husband’s excessive jealousy pushed her to quit to her job. Despite most of the respondents’ husbands being low-waged blue-collar workers such as carpenters, industrial workers, drivers or petty traders, women usually had to quit working when they get married and have children. In fact, having children is one of the ways women are kept at home, away from waged work and socialization with colleagues. On the other hand, women may choose to stay at home to prove that their marriage is genuine. Indeed, most respondents emphasized the importance of having a child before going to the citizenship interview as mentioned above. For example, Aybike (37 years old) says “after having a kid, those people who think that I got married for the citizenship kept quiet, everyone understood that our marriage was not fake.” Except for older women, all respondents had at least one child with their local husbands.

All respondents had to take care of their children on their own after giving birth, and usually without much help from their husbands. Eliza (37 years old, owner of an employment agency, Turkish citizen) says, it was “as if the kids were from someone else.” Although the gendered division of labor in the household rests highly on women in Türkiye, this inequality is much more visible in cross-border marriages. Most women justified this inequality by saying that their husbands were “very busy” with their work or they “could not trust anyone” so they assumed responsibility for childcare. In so doing, women demonstrate that they are “good housewives” who are “moral” and good at housekeeping, and their marriage is real. Kyrgyz women are pushed to accept traditional gender roles either by restrictions of the state or by their husbands and relatives (Liversage, 2012). However, when the children grow up and/or women succeed in business and/or get their citizenship, they become less dependent on their husbands, and women feel more relaxed and can negotiate better with their husbands.

After getting married, the husbands often restrict migrant women’s socialization and dress choices. Most of the respondents said that they had to tell their husbands when and why they go out. For example, Aruuzat (55 years old, housewife, Turkish citizen), a veteran soldier who was living in a small town where she had no friends, had to let her husband know where she was going. Although she rarely goes out, she usually visits her husband’s relatives in the same neighborhood to read the Koran. A former atheist, she had to go out with a headscarf. Aliya (38 years old, engineer, Turkish citizen), mother of four kids, also says that she started covering her head willingly when she came to Istanbul for her second marriage:

I asked my husband to find a Koran course. It was forbidden to go to such courses or to cover my head in Uzbekistan. I was Muslim before, but I started covering my head when I came here. In the beginning I was not used to do it, it still feels awkward. But it protects my head from sunlight (laughing).

When the husband’s female relatives are religious, the latter expects the new bride to behave according to their image of a religious woman. Under this pressure, women feel obliged to behave in accordance with religious traditions such as having a religious wedding, wearing a headscarf and appropriate clothes, not wearing make-up and sometimes going to a Koran course. Becoming religious can also be considered as one of the tactics that women adopt to prove the sincerity of their marriage to others. It can be said that this tendency is especially visible among older women and newlyweds.

Having a religious marriage (imam nikahı) also works to convert women to Islam which requires women to repent on their previous “immoral lifestyle” and become “honorable” housewives. This image of a “religious” and “good” housewife is in direct opposition to the image attached to most post-Soviet women. Most of the respondents identified themselves as Muslim; two wore headscarves and were practicing Muslims after they got married. Some respondents mentioned that they had religious education from their female relatives after getting married. For example, when Aybike (37 years old) converted to Islam at her religious wedding, she followed Islamic rules, memorized some of the prayers and tried to perform them every day. “My sister-in-law helped me. I was committed to perform prayer in the beginning but then I quit when my husband quit” she explains as she was laughing. One exception is Batma (55 years old, small-scale trader, permanent resident). She was empowered to reject the pressures exerted by her second husband’s religious family:

I told them that if you push me, I won’t marry. I am coming from another culture, Soviet-Russian culture, I cannot do that. But if I really want it from inside my heart I will. You cannot convert me forcibly. If you do that, I will go my own way, I said. Then they said ok. They criticize me, my behavior and clothes, but I think I was able to cope with it.

Batma and Eliza’s (37 years old, owner of an employment agency, Turkish citizen) stories show that when women get permanent resident status, they have more power in negotiating with their husbands. In fact, Eliza says that her husband changed when she started earning money from her own business and gained her citizenship.

Women accept doing all the household chores, bearing and rearing children, and the restrictions set by their husbands. But when their husbands cheat, women do not take this without saying or doing anything. Almost all respondents either implied or openly said that their husband was meeting other women. When the women confront their husbands about the cheating, the men respond by threatening the women with deportation and keeping the children.

The fight in the house usually happens because of cheating. […] Frequently he was sending me to take care for his parents and he was meeting other women in Antalya. He even told one of them that I was his caretaker. When I said I’ll take my kids and go, he refused to give me the kids. I searched for the information in detail [about getting a divorce] then, my kids were only one and two years old. (Eliza, 37 years old)

Having limited social networks and no family members around them, women usually had no choice but to accept the cheating. Women adopt different tactics—some get help from their in-laws while others just ignore it. Eliza tried to get support from her father-in-law, empowered by her position in the family as a “good housewife.” In Maya’s case, she criticized herself for being jealous.

My husband added me on Facebook [when we met] so I thought he added other girls too, he says hello or something else to them. There was a girl among them, he was chatting and was friendly with. I was jealous and told him that I didn’t want him to chat […] But now I understand that I was wrong. He has to have a private sphere. I don’t get jealous now or ask anything, I only ask him to tell me when he is late. (Maya, 36 years old)

It is worth noting here that women with young children, such as Aybike, Maya and Aliya or Batma who were living far away from the big cities, were eager to talk with us, sometimes for hours, as they feel alone and bored at home. These respondents were also economically active and mostly working from home flexibly, such as giving private language lessons or doing petty trade over social media. Although there is prejudice against migrant women for being dependent on their husband or for “eating their money,” the interviews noted that most women are highly skilled and eager to work even when they stay at home after giving birth. For example, some respondents were teaching English online (Aybike), some were trading between two countries and selling goods on social media (Leyla and Batma), some of them were doing online designing (Aruuzat). Some of them, like Eliza, owner of an employment agency, were even supporting their husbands financially.

The story is the reverse; I see it with Ukrainian women too. Kyrgyz girls are working in tourism and their husbands are lying at home. When they get to know the bureaucracy and acquire citizenship after three years of marriage, we succeed in business and then get death threats from husbands [who want to seize our money]. (Eliza, 37 years old)

Most of the respondents had been through different degrees of male violence as women are legally, socially, and to a lesser extent, economically dependent on their husbands for the first years of marriage. As Jørgensen’s (2012) study suggests, during the time of obligatory marriage, women bear all these pressure and violence coming either from husbands or from their relatives by adopting different tactics such as familiarizing themselves with the local culture, having children, quitting their job, becoming religious, being careful of the clothes they wear and limiting their social interactions. These tactics of adopting traditional roles align with Kandiyoti’s (1988: 275) concept of “passive resistance” against patriarchal oppression within certain restrictions. With their high education, language skills, talents, experiences and diligence, migrant women use their cultural capital⁵ to optimize their reproductive power to cope with, or to bargain with male-dominated norms and state restrictions. In this bargaining, women get social protection and recognition through a “successful marriage” and the possibility of citizenship by using their reproductive power. However, even when male control and violence becomes unbearable, migrant women do not try to access official support mechanisms, instead they seek help from the husbands’ relatives or their social networks.

Limited access to support

It is possible to get free legal help from the City Lawyers’ Associations and pursue a divorce in case of gender-based violence, with or without citizenship. Lawyers from the Antalya city bar said that they receive a number of applications from migrant spouses each month. Usually Russian, Uzbek or Kyrgyz women seek legal aid to file a divorce.

They fill a form when they come and there is a question in this form: Have you been through any domestic violence? If she says yes, then we give another form and ask questions in detail […] I had a case of a Kyrgyz woman who was married to a disabled man and she experienced violence, both physical and psychological. Women usually complain about psychological violence. If there is domestic violence, we guide women to take a decision of seeking protection from the court. […] Most of the cases are for divorce and one-third of them involves violence. (Lawyer, Antalya)

The lawyers explained that all applications to the City Lawyers’ Associations can be made by migrant women with Turkish citizenship; others who are in the obligatory period of marriage go to the city branches of the Presidency of Migration Management (PMM). These branches also conduct investigation for family resident permits or any other permits. Even when migrant women have experienced male violence, many try to hide it from officials for fear of losing their residency. For example, a female expert from the Antalya city branch of the PMM, says that even when she notices physical violence, women usually do not complain. “Once there was a woman with sunglasses. I asked her to take off her glasses and then noticed her black eye. I directed her to a social worker, but we could not assure her [to take legal action], she did not complain” she said. The same expert mentioned that most migrant women are afraid of the police and do not complain.

Similarly, none of the respondents in official marriages said they looked for legal aid for a divorce in the obligatory period of three years even when the husbands’ strict control and violence become unbearable. Only two respondents who were not in official marriages (as second wives), Leyla (33 years old, petty trader, non-Turkish citizen) and Melek (35 years old, real estate agency worker, non-Turkish citizen) said that they went to the police to get help when they experienced physical violence from their partners. Leyla said that she tried to get her baby back from her ex-partner. This is a common problem for many migrant women which needs further exploration. On the other hand, Melek said that when she went to the police station she was ignored by the police as she was not officially married. “They did not even let me stay in the police station for half an hour,” she said. Although it is not necessary to be married to seek help against gendered violence, the stigmatization against migrant women and the ignorance of the police can be considered important barriers. Our interviews show that most migrant women kept silent for fear of losing their resident permits or their children, or because of death threats from their husbands. Thus, the silence of migrant women is linked to state restrictions which lay the ground for systematic male violence either from husbands or from state officials.

Instead of approaching Turkish government institutions, women usually seek help from their husbands’ parents, their social networks or from the Kyrgyz Consulate.

He was always pushing me in 2015, I was not a citizen yet. I said damn this citizenship, it is not important than myself. My life does not depend on Türkiye, I just stay here because of my children. […] I was telling everything to my father-in-law and mother-in-law, they supported me. (Eliza, 37 years old)

Eliza mentioned that she sought civil support for help and found a women’s association which provided her with information. Another important source of help is the Kyrgyz Consulate in Istanbul. A consulate worker explains that they often receive calls from Kyrgyz women experiencing domestic violence.

They marry Turks and they cannot protect their rights and children. They come to us with stories of violence. Our staff go and explain their rights. Domestic violence is very high recently. We have a specialized staff for this, he is working on this problem, and we try to protect women in official ways. Sometimes they do not have any documents then we try to help them secretly from their husbands. (Kyrgyz Consulate worker)

During our visit to the Kyrgyz Consulate in August 2021, the staff said that they typically handled five cases of domestic violence in a month. We were told that sometimes, the husbands threaten the consulate workers. It can be argued that in case of unbearable violence, women try to find a solution by themselves or ask help from the consulate or from their social networks, cultural associations and experienced migrants. The interviews with migrant women, lawyers and state officials point to the need for a civil support mechanism outside of the Police and PMM where migrant women could feel comfortable to get assistance.

Conclusion

Marriage migration has been common in Türkiye for decades. Studies show that in the face of structural constraints, gendered difficulties or opportunities, and increasing restrictions on migrants, marriage presents a viable option to overcome these barriers. Women’s desire for better jobs and incomes, their need for social protection against Türkiye’s restrictions and their emotional needs match with local men’s high demand for sexual relationships and intimacies. As Yükseker (2003), Constable (2003, 2009), Bloch (2017) and others point out, in these new forms of intimacies—love, reproduction labor, material gain, bargaining power and emotions—are the basis of negotiation between citizen men and migrant women. Therefore, it is difficult to distinguish between obligations, emotional attachments and transactional intimacy in cross-border marriages as these different factors can overlap.

The data presented here suggest that Türkiye’s migration restrictions push women to seek options to secure their stay and social protection in marriage. However, because of suspicions of fake marriages, Türkiye resorted to strict regulations which adversely affect migrant women. The state surveillance of women in marriage migration lays the ground for male violence against migrant women as women fear losing their residence permit and thus become dependent on local men. In other words, state restrictions on migrants affect the marriage decisions of women and also lays the ground for male violence in marriage.

Women’s intimate relationships with local men evolves towards a more restricted and violent nature after marriage as women enter into a domain where the men are in control. Although Kyrgyz women are active agents in their marriage decisions, their circumstances are limited by state regulations and gender assumptions working against post-Soviet women in Türkiye. To cope with these difficulties and to prove their sincerity, women adopt different tactics and embrace traditional gendered roles such as trying hard to be a “good housewife,” becoming religious, having children as well as limiting their social relationships, especially in the first years of marriage. In addition, during the time of obligatory marriage, women bear all these pressure and violence coming from their husbands or their husbands’ relatives. Similar to findings from Jørgensen’s (2012) study, under the strict control of the state, many women feel constrained to stay in violent marriages rather than risk being deported and in fear of losing children. Having no access to support mechanisms, migrant women feel alone and helpless until they get a stable legal status or citizenship. Instead of applying to official support mechanisms, migrant women try to get help from their husbands’ relatives, from their social networks or from the Kyrgyz Consulate. In other words, the state fails to protect migrant women as it prioritizes perceived national interests and protects what it considers traditional moral values. Interestingly, women adopted the valorized traditional gender roles to maintain their marriage, a response described as passive resistance by Kandiyoti (1988). In fact, when there is no possibly of getting papers through marriage or once women get a secure status, they can leave their abusive husbands.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank young student researchers, Evser Çağla Aykanat, İlaydanur Özbey and İlknur Kökçü, for their contributions to this research.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This paper is based on a research project funded by TUBITAK (Project No: 220K322).

ORCID iDs

Emel Coşkun

Elvira Budaichieva

Notes

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