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….   Both my uncle and grandfather raped me. My uncle started it when I turned 16.

He would take me to the shed and rape me there. Once he almost got caught by his own little daughter – she came upon us and asked what he was doing.

He closed his hand around my neck and whispered: “Laugh!” I started laughing. And he said to his daughter he was just tickling me.  

Later my grandfather started doing that, too.

He would take me to “bathe” and then leave me in the shed to sleep. He would tell everyone to leave me alone, said that I was resting there.

My grandmother maybe knew something was happening, but she hated me, she blamed me.

This is the story of Jazgul A., a 27-year-old woman from a village in the south of Kyrgyzstan, who was living in the country’s only safehouse for women and girls with disabilities when Human Rights Watch first spoke with her in November 2021.

 

Report by Human Rights Watch