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HEARD: the abduction bill goes to the vote before Women's Day so the Governor can make a speech on 8 March. My cousin's wife works in the Mejlis canteen. She says the deputies were told to vote yes and give no interviews.

The deputies were not "told". They were shamed. Two years of women in white headscarves outside every district office in Kara-Buura. If somebody in Government House is now getting ready to take the credit, that is the oldest trick there is.

We will be in the gallery whatever day it is.

What the draft says, for people asking: a specific offence, 5 to 10 years, more if the girl is a minor, and registry offices barred from registering a marriage that began that way.

The last part is the clever part. A fine, you can pay. An unregistered marriage, you can't pay your way out of.

Rumour in Nurzhan: it's for the OSCE. Every report since 2011 has a paragraph about bride kidnapping. Pass a law, delete a paragraph.

Both can be true. A government can do the right thing for the wrong reason. I'll take it and thank the women.

Also HEARD: Anara Toktarova personally phoned the deputies who were against.

Source: cousin's wife. Location: canteen. Noted.

A gentle reminder for this thread. We do not name anybody involved in any case, and we do not guess about the families of individual deputies either. The Governor's wife is a public figure. Your neighbour is not. Read the rules.

In Tash-Kömür the old women say a law from Talas is like weather from the mountains: it arrives late and it lands differently. I hope this once they are wrong.

Passed. We were in the gallery. Nobody made a speech for us and nobody needed to. I will write properly tomorrow, tonight I just want to sit.

So the Women's Day thing was RIGHT!!

You said "before 8 March". It was on 8 March. Half a point. Somebody should keep score of this.

It passed: Herald. A law is a beginning. Now the villages.

I'll keep score. Women's Day vote: half. The phone calls: unconfirmed, and likely to stay that way.

cousins_wife_says: 0.5 / 2.