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Dangerous Relations

 
Just-married couple holding the certificate of marriage provided by the Registry Office at ASAN (State Agency for Public Services). Baku, Azerbaijan, 10.07.2022. Starting next year, a new law will ban alliances among uncles, aunts and cousins. © Ismayil Fataliyev

In parts of Azerbaijan, marriage between relatives is a cultural norm, leading to dangerous levels of hereditary disease. Ismayil Fataliyev reports. 

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When she became an orphan, Nubar Azizova was raised by her great-aunt. When she grew up, she fell in love with a man she wanted to marry, but instead the great-aunt wedded her to her son. 

Solmaz is Nubar’s daughter. “My parents had an opposite worldview," she said. "Elders destroyed Nubar’s life.”   

Solmaz is 41 and, until 2015, she had a sister, Jamila, who was two years younger than her. Jamila had thalassemia, a hereditary disease which affects the blood.     

“Jamila lost weight and had abdominal pain,” said Solmaz, who is a hotel receptionist in Goychay, Azerbaijan. “Her skin got darker. Her legs and body began to swell.”  To help her, Jamila’s relatives - and later a public thalassemia centre - donated blood for 17 years.

But eventually, she died. Solmaz blames the consanguineous marriage. “Parents look for chaste brides among relatives whom they trust,” she says.  

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