House of Happiness: Women at Risk in the Ferghana Valley

The unsettled cartography of Central Asia puts the Ferghana Valley - a geographical and cultural mishmash where three countries and many ethnicities cluster - in the middle of the multi-billion dollar heroin trafficking route from Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, nearly 60 percent of the opiates from Afghanistan destined for Russia and Europe are trafficked through this ancient Silk route, now known as "the heroin highway".

Much of the poorer quality heroin lands in urban centers such as Osh, a city in southern Kyrgyzstan, feeding the ever-growing addiction rates there. In the post-Soviet economic ruin, Kyrgyzstan's per capita income is second lowest in the CIS region after Tajikistan. Staggering poverty - resulting in rampant drug crime, prostitution, and a concomitant and spiraling HIV rate are the modern day ingredients to this Central Asian cocktail.

House of Happiness documents family and cultural rituals in the traditional society of Ferghana Valley, a post-Soviet region that is undergoing a revival of radical Islam. "House of Happiness", a Soviet holdover institution where couples officially register their marriages, is an ironic name for a story about a place where young brides are kidnapped, polygamy is practiced in the name of Islam and forced marriages are a social norm. When you enter the "House of Happiness", you see a cheerful facade, but behind this fake colored curtain, there are hidden women victims, husbands introducing their wives to heroin, divorcees trafficked into prostitution.

In the conservative societies of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which raise girls to be wives and mothers, women are not empowered. Their lack of quality education and absolute dependence on men both economically and culturally makes them more vulnerable to the risks of drug use and sex trafficking. In this particular milieu where marriage is a cult, and divorce a stigma, women are not prepared to handle, let alone live, independent lives.