By Ani Ghulinyan

Armenian police have opened a criminal investigation and identified the perpetrators of what appears to be the bridenapping of an 18-year-old girl after four men from the village of Verin Dvin abducted her on 16 August. The main suspect, a 30-year-old man, was arrested and charged.

The police reported that on 16 August, a 39-year-old resident of the Verin Dvin village of Artashat in Ararat Province called the emergency line and said four men threw her to the ground on Abul-Faraj street and kidnapped her daughter.

The police identified the perpetrators, one of whom presented himself to the police and was detained.

Scholars describe bride kidnapping as a once common marriage practice in Central Asia and the Caucasus. In this tradition, a man and his friends forcibly abduct a woman and take her to the man’s home to become his wife. Often, these women are pressured by family or societal norms to marry their kidnapper.

Although some see it as a ‘tradition’ and point out that it is sometimes arranged between men and women, scholars found that those cases are predominantly forced and view it as an outcome of economic desperation or weak rule of law.

Despite this, the criminal practice is becoming less popular in Armenia, isolated cases are still being reported.