Turkish rapists avoid jail by marrying victims
Thousands of Turkish rapists have avoided jail time by forcefully marrying their victims, says Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals.
According to Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals chief Mustafa Demirdağ, some 3,000 of such marriages have so far been officially registered by his department which is tasked with dealing with sexual crimes in the country.
Demirdağ made the announcement while addressing a parliamentary commission aimed at investigating and preventing sexual crimes, the Independent reported on Monday. He stressed that in several cases the victims were around the age of five.
In one case, a young girl was kidnapped and raped by three people, but after being forcefully wed to one of the perpetrators, all three rapists went free.
Based on Turkish legislation, if not avoided by marriage, such offenses can receive up to over 16 years in prison.
“That type of marriage is not acceptable,” said Demirdağ, adding, “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.”
Turkey has long been dealing with the issue of violence against women. According to media reports, over 300 women were killed last year in the country, usually by husbands or family members.
In 2011, Human Rights Watch published a report documenting what it claimed was “the brutal and long-lasting violence" in Turkey against "women and girls that in some cases lasted for decades, affecting several generations of women."
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