The story of a 27-year-old woman I met in Gerla Penitentiary, where she was serving almost 6 years in prison for theft, reminds us of the illegal “tradition” that still exists in some Roma communities and that Romanians consider it’s better to close your eyes: “abduction” of a girl by a boy. In the end, Magda felt freer in prison than outside, where she suffered only beatings and abuse from her husband.

Carefully! The article contains a detailed description of scenes of abuse and domestic violence.

The author of the article could not verify many of the details described by the woman in prison, but we decided to keep them because they illustrate the dangerous situations in which underage girls who are “kidnapped” from home can get. .

A young woman walks lightly and sits down, as if strategically, on a chair in the middle of the room. He stands motionless between four tapestries, an icon, a Peles castle puzzle, and a blackboard with words like “mourning” or “schizophrenia” written in large letters.

Her hair is in a bun on the top of her head, slightly tousled, and her flip flops are making noise on the floor, shiny with detergent. She is wearing a t-shirt with the signs of the zodiac, checkered hoodies and pink tights.

The security guard said we have an hour. He nodded and I closed the door to the psychologist’s office in the outer part of Herl’s penitentiary. He begins to rub his hands and breathes heavily. He has only nine fingers and a butterfly tattoo on his wrist.

Magda* has been in prison for 5 years 10 months 20 days. Here he spent a significant part of his youth. He is 27 years old. She was supposed to be out, but got an extra four months because she got into an argument with a prison officer shortly after she was incarcerated.

She misses her children, who know only that their mother is far away in another country. “Are you going long distance?” Liviu, the older boy, asks her on the phone. He doesn’t want to traumatize them further, so he chooses this version of the story.

“My life was difficult. I also don’t know how I ended up like this,” the woman continued. “I’m not going to get pregnant when the door closes at 5 p.m. I don’t want to get pregnant when I’m here and he’s not in my place.”

She talks about her husband Marius. They are still married, but I have been visiting him for a while now. She did this after receiving several threats from him, such as that he would be waiting for her when he got out of prison.

She was 12 years old when she was stolen by a man who was 11 years older. They lived in a village in Salai County.

“It is a Romanian practice to steal a bride. So a girl and a boy could overcome the will of their parents. When two young people fell in love, and the parents were against it or there were reservations, the young people ran away from home and had sexual intercourse, which was a symbol of the necessity of marriage, that there was no turning back.

This still happens with thefts in Roma communities such as Caldărarii, Gaborii, Spoitorii. Stealing from home or stealing a girlfriend means that there used to be a relationship, it is not a real theft, it is rather an agreement between two young people or two lovers to somehow overcome the restrictions imposed by their parents,” explains Ciprian Necula, president of the Roma Education Foundation and associate professor SNSPA.

Of course, there are also cases of abuse, Nekula continues. Similar practices have been widespread in our country since communist times, when a man who raped a woman could marry her if he agreed to it and showed that he repented.

“This practice is somehow rooted in us. Because having sex with a girl means “disgrace the girl” unless you marry her and have no serious intentions, and so that it is not dishonorable, after any intercourse the marriage goes as a package.”

Marriages between underage Roma are not as common as people think, says Necula. Rather, their exotic nature attracts them to attention. However, there are certain communities such as Caldărarii, Spoitorii or Gaborii where they are still practiced.

A fine line between acceptable cultural practices and abuse

A report by GREVIO, an independent monitoring group on the implementation of the Istanbul Convention on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, shows that Romania has one of the highest rates of early marriage in Europe. This phenomenon is closely related to the large number of teenage mothers. Most marriages take place in rural areas or in Roma communities, which Nekula also mentioned.

The document goes on to say that many of these marriages are considered “symbolic” by the authorities, but their unofficial nature is not an obstacle to criminalizing these acts.

“De facto symbolic marriages based on traditional principles, according to which one of the parties did not voluntarily give consent, have the same negative consequences for girls (expulsion from school, unwanted pregnancy, etc.) as official marriages recognized under paragraph from a legal point of view,” the message says.

The same traces remained in the case of Magda. She became pregnant a year after the theft at the age of 13. At the same time, threats and jealousy began on his part.

He was not allowed to talk to anyone. He pushed his girlfriends away because they all became a threat to their relationship. At the age of 14, he stole for the first time on his own accord. Marius was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, so he ordered her to steal wallets from people’s houses. Sometimes he also stole from stores. He did it out of fear of what might be done to him.

“I don’t feel that there is justice because he is free,” says the woman.

Marius beat her for no particular reason. One day, Magda recalls, he took her to the garden, to the cherry tree, where he beat her with chains. She said nothing and the world didn’t notice. “It was obvious, no one knew,” says the young woman.

On the night he cut her finger, the man insisted that someone had been in their house and that Magda was covering it up. She was pregnant with Andrada, the youngest girl, and Luca was barely a year old.

“Who was with us?” he asked her. Magda replied that there was no one there. “He told me that if I lied, he would cut off one of my fingers, let me choose which one. He slapped me and then cut my little finger with a Puma knife.”

Luca wiped it away and Marius continued to beat him. He was in pain, his water broke for three days, because he was afraid to go to the hospital. If those around had not paid attention to the bruise on Magda’s face, the man thought, the event of that evening probably would not have gone unnoticed by the doctors.

Eventually she arrived at the hospital where she gave birth. Narcissus was very small, weighing only 1 kg 800 grams. Because of the blows, the bones of the chest came out, so she had to wear a corset until she was seven months old.

“He followed me to the hospital. She went crazy after I gave birth,” Magda continues. – You can’t keep a man down.

All this time, no one from her environment knew what she was going through. No doctors, no family, no friends. Because of his threats, she decided not to tell anyone. But after some time, life near Marius became more and more oppressive. Therefore, Magda decided to go to her father in France when she turned 18. She returned to the country when she received a conviction for theft committed as a minor.

Communities no longer accept violence so easily, the government tolerates it

The woman experienced all this more than ten years ago, when everything was different. Ciprian Nekula says more parents are now reporting to the police when girls run away from home or are “stolen”.

“This practice already exists, it is no longer so closed. Whereas 10-15 years ago, everything was much worse. Turning to the authorities to solve this problem was unacceptable,” the activist continues.

“And in the compact Roma communities, the ones I mentioned earlier, there were some customary institutions that belonged to the community and were supposed to regulate these issues.”

Even if changes are taking place, the government still seems rigid to them, explains Nekula. “There is a prejudice here, because there is such a saying that I hear more and more often: “That’s how they are. In the end, they get along, we don’t interfere.” But here there is a problem, because the Roma in Romania are citizens of Romania with the same rights. And if there is an aggressor, his ethnicity does not matter, because we are citizens, and if we are citizens, we should enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen.”

The GREVIO report shows that although there are problems related to arranged marriages or early marriages, the Romanian legal system is still not ready to deal with this phenomenon.

Forced marriage is still not regulated as a crime in Romania because the authorities insist that any such act can be classified as illegal deprivation of liberty, rape, sex with a minor, abuse of a minor or human trafficking.

“None of these offenses were used to prosecute the forced marriage case. All this is important, especially in a context where the authorities are skeptical about intervening in cases of violence against girls in Roma communities,” the report says.

“The authorities see marriage as a ‘cultural practice’ specific to communities, which is ultimately ignored for this reason.”

Sanctions alone will not solve the problem, the document says. There is a need for trainings for the participation of officials or those who have to apply the law. In addition, there is a need for educational campaigns that also reach these communities. At the moment, as Nekula told us, this work is done by non-governmental organizations such as the FILIA Center or other feminist organizations.

While authorities find excuses not to enforce the law, some women who have survived the trauma of forced marriage find solace in unexpected places. Magda found her behind bars.

Freedom in exchange for silence

“On the street I was like in a prison. Here I have all the freedom,” says the woman. Since he has been in prison, he has met another man who accepts his children and his past. She met him through a friend in prison. He was the cousin of the cellmate. “This is a sign from my zodiac sign. And she and I are sheep,” Magda continues.

This is what gets her through the days of punishment: her two friends who weep with her through her suffering.

Years in prison taught her a lot, including about what rights she has. Now she knows she can get a restraining order and ask for help. He had never heard that from anyone before. Just as no one notices what he is going through.

They are fighting to get out as soon as possible and not get extra months. He is waiting to see his children, who I believe will be coming home soon. She has little left and will go with a one-way ticket, she says.

Author’s Note: Character names have been changed to protect their identities.

Resources for victims of domestic violence:

Consultation center for preventing and combating domestic violence – Anais Association

Network to Prevent and Combat Violence Against Women – Free Domestic Violence Advice Line

Assistance to victims provided by the National Agency for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men

Casa Ioana in Bucharest, a non-governmental organization (NGO or charity) that helps victims of domestic violence and homeless families to achieve independence

• Read also: Women who killed for their lives – Investigation into the failure of the Romanian state to prevent matrimonial crimes