Uzbekistan is planning to outlaw cousin marriages, blaming the phenomenon for rising birth defects among newborns in the Central Asian nation of 35 million people.

#Uzbekistan Set To Ban Cousin Marriages, Citing Birth Defects As Main Reason

Half the women in Pakistan are married to their cousins: Highest in the worldhttps://t.co/wlwpQPEjKR

— #FreeDaraSingh (@Ravi3pathi) July 27, 2024

The country’s Committee for Family and Women’s Affairs recently published draft amendments to the country’s Family Code. The amendments propose to the Oliy Majlis, Uzbekistan’s bicameral parliament, to ban marriages between cousins, including first and second cousins.

The amendments to Uzbekistan’s Family Code aimed at “preventing babies being born with disabilities,” according to the document. 

Official statistics in Uzbekistan indicate that nearly 10 percent of the babies born with disabilities in the country last year were children of consanguineous marriages. Nearly one-third of the cases were recorded in the southeastern region of Surkhondaryo, followed by the adjacent Qashqadaryo region.

The regions of Surkhondaryo and Qashqadaryo have the highest number of cousin marriages in Uzbekistan. One report states that around 60% of the 1,210 first-cousin marriages registered between July and December 2021 occurred in those regions.

A case for banning cousin marriage.
Would probably require mandatory premarital genetic screening.
The article is open access and written forcefully.https://t.co/FQEHS3MTZ0 pic.twitter.com/UFT4ZbDMxF

— Whyvert (@whyvert) July 27, 2024

However, other regions such as Sirdaryo, Andijon, Samarkand, and Bukhara also reported a high number of babies that are born with disabilities. Uzbek media reported that in the first five months of this year alone, about 29 percent of the 6,660 children treated for various illnesses at the National Pediatric Center in the country’s capital, Tashkent, were born to cousin marriages.

Some international studies show that marriages between blood relatives raise the risks of babies being born with birth defects because when two closely related people reproduce, there is a higher likelihood that both parents carry the same genetic mutation.

Calls to restrict or at least prohibit consanguineous marriages in Uzbekistan, where 96% of the population identifies as Muslim, began in the early 2000s. However, the tradition persists despite strong warnings from doctors and officials, and the population’s views on banning cousin marriages in the country are mixed.

Sabohatkhon Alimova, from the eastern region of Namangan, has been married to her first cousin - the son of her maternal aunt - for more than 40 years. Her parents were also first cousins. Alimova, who hails from neighboring Tajikistan, insists that her four children were born “healthy and normal,” with two of her children also going on to marry relatives.

Even discounting the numerous well-documented medical issues caused by inbreeding, it also overwhelmingly disaffects women. The essential tool of clan-based patriarchy is cousin marriage. https://t.co/2BRALQ5XFx

— Archy| Richard Nixon Democrat (@ArchysLife) July 27, 2024

“There is more trust and love among relatives [and] there are not many divorces in such marriages,” Alimova said. “When your daughter-in-law or son-in-law is your relative, you know that they will look after you when you’re old and sick.”

But for Sirojiddin Toghaev, a resident of the Surkhondaryo region who struggles with disabilities and relies on crutches, a wheelchair, or a scooter to move around, he believes that children pay the price for their parents’ decisions.

“Recently, our provincial governor wrote on the Internet: ‘Don’t marry your relatives. Your children will suffer as a result, not you.’ He is right. People should think about it when they consider getting married,” Toghaev said. 

“My father married his cousin, the daughter of his father’s sister,” Toghaev said, blaming his health condition on being born in a consanguineous marriage. “It was arranged by my grandfather. My elder sister, Oibahor, and I were born with birth defects because our parents were blood relatives.”