Cross Border Marriages, “Bargaining with Patriarchy” and Gender Based Violence: A Case of Kyrgyz Women in Turkey

This paper focuses on migrant women’s cross border marriages with local men and their position in these marriages under Turkey’s changing migration legislation in the last decades. Based on 39 indepth interviews with migrant women from Kyrgyzstan, public employees, lawyers, and İstanbul Kyrgyz consulate workers in the summer months of 2021 and 2022, this study points out the unequal position of migrant women in cross border marriages. The findings suggest that the increasing surveillance of the public authorities on migrant women lays the ground for different forms of male violence in cross border marriages. Under the unequal position in these marriages and restrictions on migrants, migrant women actively or passively “bargain with patriarchy” over gender roles (Kandiyoti 1988). Migrant women usually passively resist to overcome these difficulties by embarrassing traditional gender roles such as by being “a good wife and mother”, giving birth, adopting religious practices and limiting their social relationships with their friends. Although passive resistance through traditional gender roles make cross border marriages possible for migrant women, migrant women also keep silent against male violence.