A bill that would pardon over 3,000 men of statutory rape is only one step away from being law in Turkey.
The bill that, on Friday, was given the preliminary go-ahead by the Turkish Member’s of Parliament (MPs) would decriminalize the rape of girls under the age of 18 if there were no “force, threat or trick”, and if the girl and her rapist were eventually married with permission from her family.
The bill was kickstarted after the Turkish government located over 3,000 families that had husbands who were imprisoned for raping their underage wives. Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım defended the bill saying “There are those who got married under-age. They don’t know the law, then they have kids, the father goes to jail and the children are alone with their mother. We located 3,000 families like this. This is a law to eliminate this victimisation for just one time.” The bill would apply only to cases that occurred prior to November 16 of this year.
Heinous as it may be, this bill is one vote from being reality in Turkey, a country that has seen an uptick in not only violence against women, but also the viciousness of this violence.
A map made by Turkish journalist Ceyda Ulukaya highlights 1,134 of the near 6,000 “femicides” (murders of women) in Turkey between 2010 and 2016. This comprehensive map only highlights some of the murders of women in Turkey, and does not even touch on the daily harassments and assaults faced by women in the eastern European nation. U.S. News ranks Turkey as the seventh worst country for gender equality in the world.
Releasing these men from prison would not only set a precedent for raping young girls in Turkey, it would further establish the role young women have in deciding their own future. The rape would be valid if the marriage was approved by the girl’s family. Were this bill to pass, it would be a monumental slap in the face for women fighting for their basic human rights, and even further muzzling the voices of young girls subjected to the will of men in Turkey, and all over the world.
