Crisis Group “Marem”

We named our team in memory of Marem Alieva because her short life story embodies the full horror of discrimination against women in the North Caucasus.

Marem Alieva was born in Ingushetia. In 1994, when she was only 16, she was kidnapped for marriage by Mukharbek Evloev. At that time, he was already 36 years old and had six children from two wives, whom he had thrown out, forbidding them to contact their children.

There was no one to stand up for Marem. Her parents had passed away. The person closest to her, her sister Elizaveta Alieva, described Marem’s marriage like this: “Evloev didn’t consider a woman a human being and always said that Marem was his possession.”

He treated his children the same way. His daughter from his first marriage, Khadi, died under strange circumstances, allegedly by suicide. Marem told her sister that Khadi had confided in her, saying their father would come into her room at night and touch her.

Marem tried to escape the abuse multiple times but always returned—under pressure from relatives and out of fear for her children’s lives. In July 2015, she came to her sister covered in bruises and scratches and said that her husband had shaved half her head at night and threatened to throw acid in her face. Shortly afterward, as punishment, he cut off the tip of her left thumb.

After that, Marem took her children and fled once again. This time, Evloev’s daughter from a previous marriage, Maret, also ran away with her. In response, Evloev’s relatives posted wanted notices all over the republic, claiming that Marem was a fraud, a witch, and had robbed her husband.

Yet again, she was persuaded to return. The village elders personally guaranteed her safety. But those guarantees turned out to be worthless.

On September 19, 2015, Marem called her sister and said that her husband had stood by her bed at night and promised to kill her. The next day, she called again:
“Liza, I’m scared. There are men in our yard. If my number stops working in half an hour, Liza, save me.”

When Liza rushed to her sister’s house, she found only Marem’s frightened, tearful children. They said that when they came home from school, they saw a bloodstained rope with a noose—“like the kind used to tie up cows.” Marem’s hairdryer was also covered in blood. But Marem herself was nowhere to be found.

Marem Alieva—neither alive nor dead—has never been found. No criminal case has been opened into her disappearance.