You might have heard of daily essentials, commodities and other daily requirements being sold in market. However, have you heard of young and teen girls being sold in market?
It might sound a bit awkward, but it is true. It is followed by young women from Bulgaria’s Kalaidzhi — an orthodox Christian subgroup of the Roman community.
The 18,000-strong community is widely discriminated against across Eastern Europe and renowned for fiercely guarding their cultural traditions.
Young women are forced to leave school as soon as they have their first period.
The culture is also renowned for a “bridal market” held up to four times a year where young girls flock to muddy fields and parking lots around the country in red carpet gowns to meet prospective husbands.
The bride market is an ancient tradition essential to the Kalaidzhi identity, which is why this custom has survived, but these days most girls have an element of choice — albeit shaped by family pressure — when it comes to whom they wed.
While the generations-old market has been changed by technology and the economic downturn, it’s still one of the main ways families are introduced to one another in a country where they are economically and socially discriminated against.
Grooms pay an average of $290 to $350 for their young brides, however the price can go much higher.
If the girl is not a virgin when you sell her, they will call her whore, slut and disgraceful woman. Kalaidzhi women must be virgins when they first marry. It is very important because a lot of money is given for virginity.
The market is “scary” as “there’s a possibility parents could decide to give their daughter’s hand to a man who has more money, rather than one who is poor even if she loved the poor man.
There are some cases where a boy and a girl love each other but the girl has dark eyes and if the boy’s parents are wealthy they won’t want her as their daughter-in-law. They will want a more beautiful one.
While neither girl actually makes a match, the parents are not unhappy.
Agencies
