State television in Kazakhstan broadcast a startling talk show earlier this month.

The presenters trailed the episode as a touching attempt to engineer harmony between an estranged couple.

What they ended up producing horrified viewers and culminated with the tabloid talk show being cancelled amid accusations that the state broadcaster was seeking to legitimize domestic violence — an endemic and deep-rooted problem in Kazakhstan.

In what was presumably intended as the scene of a touching reunion, a man in his forties carrying a bouquet of flowers and a white teddy bear approached his wife seated in the studio. To this, the woman reacted frantically.

“I don’t need anything from you! My children don't want to see you or even talk about you anymore! Thank God you are no longer with us!” the 40-year-old woman, who was identified only by the name Gulmira, shouted at the man, shoving him away.

The explanation that followed shocked TV viewers. The reaction of the show’s hosts disgusted them.

Gulmira recalled how she had fled from her husband with her six children from the southern city of Shymkent to the capital, Astana, where she managed to find room in a crisis center.

Over 18 years, her husband drank and beat her and the children, she said. The final straw arrived when one assault left her with an injured spine and a broken arm. She told the story while wearing a mask to preserve her anonymity and thereby also protect her children.

The presenters were sympathetic, but only up to a point. One, Asem Izatkyzy, suggested that Gulmira had perhaps provoked her husband by not properly performing domestic chores or giving him cause to feel jealous. Izatkyzy’s male colleague, Samat Tolykbai, asked if Gulmira had somehow driven her husband to drink.

The appearance of the husband was a shock stunt that was not coordinated with Gulmira, who said she had only agreed to be on the show on condition he not be involved.

The man freely admitted he had physically abused his wife, although he justified his behavior by saying she did not clean the house properly. At one stage, the presenters allowed him to bait Gulmira into taking off her mask. Studio guests badgered Gulmira too, insisting that she should forgive him out of respect for the imminent start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

The rage was instantaneous and intense.

“What an unprecedented exemplar of the patriarchal porridge stewing in the heads of so many Kazakhstanis,” Almaty resident Tatyana Kuchura wrote on Facebook. “A cynical attempt to shape public opinion in favor of these domestic pugilists.”

Journalist Zhadra Zhulmukhametova said she was shocked how little thought the show producer had given to the possible consequences.

“What if they had made up, and then he had killed her in some other row? Did that though not occur to the makers of the show?” she wrote.

Culture and Information Minister Aida Balayeva reacted by announcing that the talk show, Birak (However), would be pulled from state broadcaster Khabar.

“A state television channel, particularly one whose job it is to explain government policy, should not be permitted to broadcast something like this,” she wrote on Facebook.

The show was questionable enough, but the timing of its airing was made especially grievous by the backdrop of an ongoing high-profile trial of a former minister accused of beating his partner to death in November.

For campaigners against domestic violence, Kuandyk Bishimbayev is emblematic of the scourge. People who knew him and his partner, Saltanat Nukenova, have alleged that he physically abused his wife on a routine basis, but was never taken to task.

Investigators claim that in addition to assaulting Nukenova, Bishimbayev also prevented her from communicating with friends and colleagues. As is common in such abusive relationships, Nukenova forgave him every time, people close to the couple have said.

But public opinion is not universally stacked against Bishimbayev. Many internet users have noted an apparent online campaign designed to qualify the ex-minister’s behavior. Some bloggers have written pieces arguing that “not everything [about the Bishimbayev case] is so simple” and that Nukenova was anything but blameless.

People attempting to equivocate over this story have cause to believe they can find a receptive audience. Among traditional communities, particularly in rural areas, domestic violence, almost universally directed at women and children, is widely accepted as a fact of life.

One woman, a resident of a village outside Almaty, shared her story with Eurasianet on condition of anonymity. She and her three daughters are compelled to remain with the father of the family, an electrician, who routinely lashes out after returning from drinking sessions with his friends, she said.

“What can we do? He is the only breadwinner in our family,” she told Eurasianet. “Even if I take the children and leave him, where are we supposed to go? We have nowhere to live.”

Last April, the Interior Ministry reported that the police receive more than 100,000 reports of domestic violence every year. Most offenders escape punishment.

Renat Zulkhairov, a senior ministry official, said that in 60 percent of cases, victims refuse to pursue a charge.

“Impunity gives rise to permissiveness, assault becomes habit, and that often leads to more serious consequences,” Zulkhairov said.

What Zulkhairov referred to as“serious consequences” apparently meant death. According to official figures, around 900 people have been killed as a result of domestic violence incidents in Kazakhstan over the past five years.

Gradual evolutions in the culture and law are taking place, however.

Under changes to the law that came into force in July 2023, it became possible for police to intervene not just when a victim had filed a report, but even when an episode of violence had been recorded. And offenders are now less free to resort to the mechanism of court reconciliation as a way of ending prosecutions. Domestic violence may only rely on mediated resolution on a single occasion. Repeat occurrences of violence must now be pursued as a matter for investigation.

Police believe those changes have already yielded positive results. In January, Zulkhairov announced that in the second half of 2023, police initiated administrative cases over 64 percent of allegations of domestic violence. That figure has generally not tended to exceed 30 percent. And twice as many arrests have been carried out for domestic violence offenses, the Interior Ministry official said.

But activists believe legislation can only go so far.

Veronica Fonova, a writer who studies the phenomenon of domestic violence, told Eurasianet that abusers often take advantage of the financial vulnerability of their victims. The wage gap between men and women in Kazakhstan can sometimes reach around 30 percent, she said.

These deeper structural realities buttress popular ideas about “traditional norms,” where patriarchy is considered to be synonymous with domestic harmony, Fonova argued.

“We live in a country of contrasts,” she said. “We use mobile technologies and artificial intelligence, which improve our everyday life day after day. But at the same time, we are afraid that we may be killed for our so-called overly modern attitudes.”