There is not a day that goes by that we do not hear another woman being killed or a child being abused in Turkey.<\/p>\n
According to We Will Stop Femicides Platform<\/a>\u2019s latest report<\/a> released on February 4, 28 women were killed, 25 women and 147 children were sexually abused in January alone this year.<\/p>\n In 2017, the same organization had put the number of women killed to 409, and children sexually abused to 387. The main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party is on \u00a0record \u00a0as saying<\/a> that cases of child abuse increased by 700 percent from 2006 to 2015.<\/p>\n On 15 February, the Republican People\u2019s Party deputy Mehmet T\u00fcm held a press conference at the Parliament, accusing the prosecutor and the police in a current child sexual abuse case<\/a> in Ankara of trying to cover up.<\/p>\n He expressed anger over insensitivity of the government as well as many in society towards child abuse accusations, which now make up the majority of cases dealt with in Turkey\u2019s courts. \u201cNormalization of child abuse is a shame for our country\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n Mehmet T\u00fcm criticized the government for encouraging and legitimizing existing conservative practices in society by introducing legislation to make child marriages easier, and by giving religious brotherhoods a bigger unsupervised role in educational establishments.<\/p>\n Horrid crimes of child sexual abuse, femicide and domestic violence happen in every country, but the sharp rise<\/a> in recent years in Turkey, taken together with the institutional failure to prevent, protect and support victims, makes is an even more urgent \u00a0problem to be tackled.<\/p>\n The problem is not the lack of legal framework. Turkey is party to The Convention on Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. Protection of children and young people is guaranteed under the country\u2019s Constitution.<\/p>\n Turkey was the first signatory state for the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention.<\/p>\n Despite having the legal framework, the judicial system and law-enforcing agencies are lenient. Societal attitudes towards child marriage and domestic violence against women compound the problem and create a climate of impunity.<\/p>\n In recent years, the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party and the second biggest opposition, Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) have attempted to raise the issue in the Parliament but the ruling Justice and Development Party AKP and its political ally The Nationalist Movement Party used their majority to block them on several occasions.<\/p>\n There is often a media blackout imposed on child abuse cases. Journalists<\/a> reporting abuse cases are targetted, sometimes even receiving death threats.<\/p>\n A handful of columnists, among them Hurriyet daily\u2019s Ayse Arman<\/a> and Melis Alphan<\/a> persist in giving a voice to abuse victims; but they are exceptions.<\/p>\n Pro-government media sees calls for action and display of political will to deal with abuse as malicious attacks on the government and its conservative, Islamists policies. They either ignore the issue or launch attacks on those bringing it to public\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n