ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- By the time 13-year-old Guldauren finally confided in her sister, she was already seven months pregnant.
The teenager, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, was raped by a neighbor four years older than her.
She had stayed silent about the incident due to her fear that the village community in southern Kazakhstan where she lived would judge her instead of supporting her.
Sure enough, despite the fact that Guldauren's abuser was arrested and sentenced to jail for the rape, it was Guldauren's family who left the village where the incident took place.
For 15-year-old Sezim (name also changed), the story was similar, except that the person who raped her was her older brother.
Having discovered the pregnancy late while suffering abdominal pains, Sezim soon gave birth. She and her mother eventually decided to give the baby to a children's home.
These are just two stories of women who spent time in crisis centers in the southern province of Turkestan and the largest city in the area, Shymkent.
According to the Health Ministry, in the first half of 2024, 1,166 girls aged between 15 and 17 gave birth in Kazakhstan, a country of around 20 million people.
Separate to that figure, another 174 teens were recorded as having abortions, including five girls under the age of 14.
Lack Of Support
Experts say these figures are boosted by a lack of protection for girls who fall victim to sexual abuse and a lack of education about sex and pregnancy, especially in the more conservative regions of the country.
"There are girls who entered into sexual relations voluntarily and became pregnant, and there are also those who became victims of sexual violence, sometimes from a father, stepfather, or biological brother," said Perizat Kaldarova, a psychologist who works with young girls who suffered abuse.
"Incest is especially difficult. Almost every girl who has experienced such violence is left with a feeling of fear and horror. They often find out about their pregnancy too late," she told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service.
That means they are late in turning to family crisis centers, which are the only real form of institutional support available to young people when others -- staff psychologists in schools, for instance -- fall short.
Girls who live in crisis centers typically receive schooling to compensate for lost time in school and psychological help to cope with depression, which Nurgul Berdibaeva, a social worker at the Komek Crisis Center in Shymkent, says is common both during and after the pregnancy.
"The girls usually come to the center only just before giving birth…. Each comes in a state of anxiety, with eyes full of fear. After giving birth the girl's life changes dramatically," she says.
"The psychological trauma remains for a long time and returning to school is very difficult. Any word that reminds them of what they have gone through can plunge them straight back into depression," said the social worker.
And the resources of crisis centers are fairly stretched.
In response to questions from Human Rights Watch in 2019, the Kazakh Interior Ministry said 40 crisis centers -- both governmental and nongovernmental -- functioned across the country.
Feelings Of Guilt
HRW said that figure fell short of internationally recommended standards of one shelter space per 10,000 people.
HRW's report, which was focused on victims of domestic violence in particular, also found that "staff in the government-run crisis centers lacked sufficient training to provide services."
The report also said staff in some of the centers covered by the group's research were prone to victim-blaming.
In the context of both domestic violence and teen pregnancies, victims often already blame themselves, according to psychologist Kaldarova.
She argues that this problem stems in part from the taboo surrounding family discussion about sex, where the topic can be associated with shame.
But experts say better sexual education for early teens would go a long way both toward preventing unwanted pregnancies, stressing the importance of consent and expanding the resources available to teenagers.
A 2018 report on sexual education by Kazakh researchers Karlygash Kabatova and Sergei Marinin noted that "despite multiple strategies for health-care improvement…there is still no coherent plan for addressing reproductive health and sexual rights for adolescents."
After the report's publication, Kabatova founded Uyat Emes (It's Not Shameful), a platform to promote sexual health and sexual education.
Since then, Kabatova says, alterations made to Kazakhstan's Health Care Code provide "some grounds" for sexual and reproductive health and rights education for young people.
Nevertheless, "I haven't seen it being introduced on a large scale," Kabatova says, naming the elite, state-run Nazarbaev schools -- named for Kazakhstan's first president -- among the institutions that had adopted some sexual education classes.
The expert's earlier research, meanwhile, showed that raising the topic of sex and any intimate relationships within families is especially difficult "in families where the dominant language is Kazakh compared to those where the Russian language is dominant, irrespective of ethnicity."
"Sex ed should include not just the methods of contraception, but the principles of consent and healthy relationships," Kabatova told RFE/RL.
Written by Chris Rickleton in Almaty based on reporting by RFE/RL Kazakh Service correspondent Dilara Isa
