Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #447

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Bulgarian Bride Market Where Virgin Girls Are Sold By Their Families
By Kimberly Campbell
Every spring, the town of Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria hosts a controversial bride market where young vir- gins are paraded in front of suitors who bid on them. The market is the biggest annual get-together for Bulgaria's 18,000- strong Kalaidzhi Roma clan, a subgroup of the Roma people who face constant prejudice and exclusion across Europe.
The 18,000- strong community is widely discrimi- nated against across Eastern Europe and renowned for fiercely guarding their cultural tradi- tions. The culture is also renowned for a “bridal mar- ket” held up to four times a year where young girls
flock to muddy fields and parking lots around the country in red carpet gowns to meet prospective husbands.
Young women can be forced to leave school as soon as they have their first period, according to academic Alexey Pamporov who has studied the Roma for two decades.
The tradition is
the subject of a recent Broadly documentary ‘Young Brides for Sale’ by Milene Larsson and Alice Stein, who trav- elled to Stara Zagora in Bulgaria to watch one family up close as their teenage daugh- ters prepared to meet potential husbands by whitening their face with pomade and trying on dresses bought online.
The Swedish film- maker said her “jaw dropped” when she first heard about the concept but on closer inspection it’s far more com- plex than it seems.
“The bride market is an ancient tra- dition essential to the Kalaidzhi identity, which is why this custom has survived, but these days most girls have an ele-
ment of choice — albeit shaped by family pressure — when it comes to whom they wed” the filmmaker said.
“That doesn’t by any means justify the disturbing idea that women are property that you can sell, bid on and buy, and how that shapes these girls’ lives from day one. They are brought up not to discover who they are and their ambitions, but instead to obey and serve their future hus- bands.”
While the genera- tions-old market has been changed by tech- nology and the economic down- turn, it’s still one of the main ways families are intro- duced to one another in a country where they are economi- cally and socially
discriminated against.
Grooms pay an average of $290 to $350 for their young brides, Ms Larsson reports, however the price can go much higher.
“If the girl is not a virgin when you sell her, they will call us whores, sluts and dis- graceful women,” Vera said. Her daughter Pepa agreed: “Kalaidzhi women must be virgins when they first marry. It is very important because a lot of money is given for virginity.”
Some women are traditional and will accept the terms of their families and culture no matter what. But do women with bigger aspirations deserve such a life where they are treated like some goods?
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