Aida Kasymalieva

Aida Kasymalieva (, born 1984) is a Kyrgyz journalist and politician who has been deputy speaker of the Supreme Council since December 2018. She has been an advocate for women's rights in the context of domestic violence, bride kidnapping and child marriages within her country.

Education and early career Kasymalieva graduated with a degree in journalism with honours from the Bishkek Humanities University in 2005. In 2012, Kasymalieva was working in Moscow for Radio Azattyk and came across a video on Twitter of a Kyrgyz woman being beaten in Yekaterinburg for speaking Tajik. Due to Kasymalieva's investigation, more similar videos emerged and a documentary was aired on Kyrgyz National TV on 29 May 2012. After this, numbers of victims began filing police complaints. Kasymalieva partnered with women's rights organisation Urgent Action Fund to raise money for legal assistance and psychological support for the victim in the original video.

In 2005, at age 20, Kasymalieva was highly commended at the Developing Asia Journalism Awards and in 2006 she was second runner up in the Women and Development category for her feature on growing alcohol problems among Kyrgyzstan's rural women. In 2016, Kasymalieva received an award from the Embassy of Switzerland for best TV/radio material about violence against women and girls.

Political career In 2005 the Kyrgyz parliament was all men, but after a number of campaigns, a gender quota was adopted requiring women to make up one third of party candidate lists. becoming the country's youngest female member of parliament. As a member of parliament, she has made domestic violence and child marriage key issues. In 2017, she spoke on women's issues at a parliamentary session and all her male colleagues walked out. She said, "We were discussing assignments, grants, roads, and all men were sitting in the hall then the parliamentary hour (on gender issues) started ... and all men in the hall just stood up and went."

After criticising the government as a journalist, Kasymalieva said people expected her to be an "opposing politician", but she has chosen to be a "centrist" Two deputy ministers also resigned after Kasymalieva filed requests for information about the ministry leadership's foreign travel. In February 2019, Kasymalieva was one of the speakers at the International Conference on Universal Child Grants in Geneva. She is chair of the oversight and monitoring group ensuring execution of the National Action Plan on Open Government and a member of the Committee on Social Affairs, Education, Science, Culture and Health.

In 2022, Kasymalieva became the new Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to the United Nations after presenting her credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on 15 February.

Personal life Kasymalieva is married and has a daughter.

Kasymalieva is one of three women featured in the 2017 Thomson Reuters Foundation documentary When Women Rule, alongside Kenyan MP Peris Tobiko and Bolivian mayor Soledad Chapeton.

Selected publications