This subject of bride kidnapping, a tradition still alive in Kyrgyzstan, was taboo for the majority of the population and media. KLOOP, an online news portal, decided to break the silence with the Koshogo campaign.

A koshogo is a white curtain or veil. According to tradition, for the bride, passing under the koshogo means giving her consent to marriage. At the kidnappers’ house, the young woman is forced to perform the ritual. If she resists, she will often be raped.

We collected the reports of the ala kachuu victims that were rejected by police and printed them on koshogos. These white sheets, hundreds of them, appeared in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in the exact spots where the abductions took place.

We combined the koshogo - a powerful symbol of the traditional marriage and virginal innocence symbolized by its white color - with stories of violence against women, even rape, taken from the ala kachuu victims’ reports rejected by the police. This created a powerful emotional impact.