Outrage As Turkey Legalise Rape Of Young Girls

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MPs in Turkey are outraged as parliament consider legalising the rape of young girls

Turkey may be about to legalise the rape of young girls under the of 15, as Parliament consider passing a controversial new bill. 

Turkey’s governing party has left MPs furious after proposing a bill that will pardon thousands of existing child rapists if the perpetrator marries his victim.

It will also allow would-be rapists to rape young girls in the future, as long as they marry them.

Telegraph.co.uk reports:

The controversial proposal would apply to statutory rape cases without use of “force, threat, or any other restriction on consent” involving girls aged 15 or younger.

Men convicted in such cases between 2005, when a similar law was abolished, and Nov 16 this year would be eligible to have their sentences “deferred” if they married their victims.

In case of a divorce that is the “fault of the perpetrator”, the sentence would once again come into effect.

The bill — which was brought forward by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative AKP — was approved on Thursday night, but did not reach the number of votes required for it to be passed into law. Parliament will vote on the proposal again on Tuesday.

Opposition MPs condemned the bill, warning that such a law would lead to girls being forced into marriage against their will and encourage abusers. On Twitter, users protested the bill with the hashtag #TecavuzMesrulastirilamaz — “rape cannot be legitimised”.

“If a 50- or 60-year-old is told to marry an 11-year-old girl after raping her, and then marries her years later, she will suffer the consequences,” said Omer Suha Aldan, an MP for the main opposition party CHP.

“If you give him a pass by marriage, the young girl will live in prison her whole life.”

The minister of justice, Bekir Bozdag, went on national television on Friday to defend the proposal, arguing that the bill was a response to the “unfortunate reality” of teenage marriage in Turkey’s conservative society.

He said that the proposed law would pardon men who had consensual sex with an underage girl they wanted to marry, adding that around 3,000 people could be released.

“When a child is then born from this non-official union, the doctor warns the prosecutor and the man is sent to prison, putting the child and mother into financial difficulties,” he said. “Those who say ‘rapists will benefit from this’ are distorting the situation.”

Earlier this year, women’s rights groups reacted with fury when Turkey abolished a criminal code article classifying all sexual acts with children aged 15 or younger as “sexual abuse” in response to a local court’s petition to lower the age of consent.

Unless replaced with another law, this annulment will come into force in January next year.

3 Comments

  1. How could a culture accept this, its bad enough that genital mutilation is the norm in the Moslem World, but to legalize paedophile rape is an abomination of a degenerate, and barbaric society that requires containment and isolation!

  2. I wonder if they have as many child rapists as California? Callifornia should be called Pedofornia as it’d the highest pedophile state in the US.

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