The
testimony of a Turkish Supreme Court of Appeals representative has
revealed the sad truth about the practice of victims of sexual abuse
being married to their assaulters.
Mustafa Demirdağ, the head of
the Supreme Court of Appeals department which oversees sexual crimes,
said the number of such marriages which were officially registered had
reached nearly 3000, according to daily Milliyet.
Speaking to a
parliamentary commission formed to investigate and prevent sexual
crimes, Demirdağ said children from 5 to 18 years old could be subjected
to sexual abuse, adding that girls between the ages of 12 and 15 were
more easily tricked by abusers.
Demirdağ mentioned several cases,
one of which was similar to the story of a TV series called
“Fatmagül’ün suçu ne?” (What is Fatmagül’s Crime?), which became highly
popular a couple of years ago. “Three persons kidnaped a girl. Three of
them raped her. When one of them married her, the sentences for all
three were lifted. That type of marriage is not acceptable. It is cruel
to force someone to marry a person she does not want [to marry] and
force her to spend the rest of her life with him,” he said.
16-year sentence in cases of child abuse
While
talking about the practice of abusers marrying their victims, Demirdağ
said the number of such marriages had reached some 3000, adding that
sentences of 16 years and eight months in prison were given if there was
a complaint in these types of cases. As an example, he talked about the
case of a 15-year-old girl who fell in love with a boy in her
neighborhood. “She called the boy on the phone that night and said she
would commit suicide if he did not come to kidnap her. Then the boy
kidnaps her. Afterwards they get married according to the norms of the
neighborhood. When the case came to us, they were already married
officially and they had three kids. Before the law numbered 6545 came
into force, the boy would have been sentenced to a minimum eight years
and four months [in prison]. Now it is 16 years and eight months. Do I
find this fair? No I don’t. But I am the implementer of the law. But not
all the cases fit the same pattern. Yet we do not make categorizations
among them.”