Breaking news, meanwhile, from the Ottoman Empire…
Might as well be, as the formerly secular and progressively modernising Turkey continues its latter-day recidivist descent under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan towards 19th century social values, with the reemergence of an appalling proposed legal “reform”.
It’s so awful, I find it hard to describe. However, the government is promoting a bill which would overturn a man’s conviction for child sexual assault if he marries his victim. This was previously attempted by Erdogan in 2016 but withdrawn after a storm of protest.
It’s back.
The detail, as I understand it, is that if a man has been convicted of raping a girl under 16, and he is no more than 10 years older than her, he will be effectively pardoned if he and she subsequently marry.
According to the government, the law is not designed to legitimise child rape, but to address the widespread problem of child marriage in Turkey.
How, exactly? Back in 2016, the justice minister explained that child marriage was “unfortunately a reality”, but that the men who were doing it “were not rapists or sexual aggressors”.
Now, let’s be clear: we’re not talking about marriages between children, but marriages between female children and male adults.
Turkey is far from alone in this; in many countries and cultures, girls are routinely given or sold into marriage with older (often very much older) men. There are many aspects to this practice, including using marriage to absolve, or rather cover up, sexual crimes or incidents which are considered to bring shame upon the family. It’s a complicated and entrenched cultural phenomenon.
The proposed law is literally an attempted return to the good old days. In a case in the Ottoman courts in 1846, for example, a woman’s allegation of rape was accepted but the court’s remedy was to offer her the opportunity to marry her rapist. She was awarded a substantial dowry. In return she had to withdraw her allegation on the logical basis that the marriage effectively converted the rape to a consensual act.
Same principle here, applied to children. It’s an important point to understand, because otherwise we’d make the mistake of assuming that the promoters of the Turkish law believe a child can consent to sex. That’s not what they’re saying at all, in the sense that it has not occurred to them as a consideration.
Australian law says, explicitly, that a child under the age of consent cannot give consent to a sexual act (with some messy and inconsistent provisions at the margins). Absence of consent is an element of the crime of rape, and it is deemed absent where the victim is a child. That’s the end of the argument.
What the Turkish men are arguing is that, in Turkey, it isn’t quite the end of the argument. Their point is not about the emotional or intellectual capacity of a child to consent, but rather that her consent is in some circumstances irrelevant. In theory, the law will apply only where the child was not forced to have sex, but that we know is a nonsense. A child’s consent is never consent.
The proposed Turkish law reflects a very ancient principle: the one that says that sex is a right, of men, to be taken from women as men wish. On that basis, the woman’s age is not a significant concern, given that her consent is not a central element in the equation.
Turkey does outlaw rape, including rape in marriage (the latter only since 2005). There, as in every country, rape’s evolution from a property crime (against the woman’s owner) to a personal one (sex without consent) is a slow-moving thing. It’s painfully hard for societies to let go of the idea that sex is a male proprietary right.
The Turkish government is correct, at least, in its assertion that there is a relationship between child rape and child marriage. They’re just different manifestations of the one concept: that women are the property of men. In that construct, it’s not a logical leap to say that there are circumstances in which a woman’s non-consent can be rendered irrelevant, as in the Ottoman example where she subsequently marries her rapist.
It makes one wonder why the same men are saying child marriage is a problem at all. Nevertheless, giving them the benefit of that doubt, it should be obvious that the solution to the problem of child marriage is not to excuse child rape. It is as offensive as are honour killings, and laws which say that rape cannot be proved without the testimony of male witnesses. They’re all medieval and should be shamed out of existence.
It isn’t obvious, to them, because they’re still trapped in a mindset which sees consent as an inconvenience. In that, the lawmakers of Turkey are far from alone.
It seems to be a trait of extreme right cultures that women shall have no rights. This Turkish law is abominable. Given the current Australian government’s proclivity to excuse, cover-up and deny rape, assault, and murder of Australian women, it would appear that we are heading in a similar direction.
Agreed chipsnbeer. The pain and trauma behind the stats here in Australia are horrifying as is our political leaders dismissive treatment of the problems but far out… Turkey makes even SloMo look progressive in this area and God knows he’s the pits!. The idea of a rape victim being compelled to repeatedly suffer the same thing in a marriage, gosh I can barely think about it. Hopefully the outrage will stop the legislation again. And maybe SloMo can ring his opposite number and express our devastated dismay.
chips doesnt matter left or right both extreme and in the end very similar. cant compare australia to turkey but with the new tribalism maybe. the topic of child brides and such still comes up at times here in sydney and melbourne
I had a discussion 7 or 8 years ago with a senior Australian businesswoman who had been to Turkey on a trade mission about the gradual unwinding of secular norms there under Erdogan but she denied it was happening or brushed it aside a insignificant. At the time female parlimentarions had just been required to cover their faces in parliament. While the people at the top refuse to see whats going on, or contemplate the consequences we dont have much hope.
Agree, salami tactics, but Erdogan did not start the slide away from half baked ‘secularism’ back to Sunni Islam which began decades earlier, while throwing Turkey’s Alevi (falsely deemed to to be Shia) community under a bus (especially since secular opposition CHP, i.e. Ataturk’s old party, has many Alevi members/supporters).
The first civilian president post ‘Generals’ Coup’, led by himself in 1980, was then retired military officer Kenan Evren whose first words in public were: ‘Allahu Ekber’; not very secular?
This was a symptom of the state’s ‘Franco-isation’ policy (& NATO’s ‘Gladio network’ going off piste), shared by other Mediterranean nations’ fear of democracy, open society, educated and youth, i.e. encourage Sunni religious education, football/stadia, traditional values, Saudi investment into foundations and complemented by authoritarian policies.
Seems that the ruling Turkish elite cares not for the stolen innocence of underage female minors.
The unwholesome rulers of Turkey’s promote the engagement in child rape, this being a criminal
action in the eyes of the developed world. Why not impose sanctions on trade between Australia
and (all other Western countries) Turkey, resulting from Turkey’s declared freedom to engage in
child abuse with implied impunity?
Why not call these ‘men’…whether Turkish or otherwise…what they really are…PEDOPHILES!
How revolting!!
Totally agree with you CML. Well said!
Today we see a journalist, female I think, charged with “insulting president Erdogan.” He is on the road to dictatorship, if indeed he has not already arrived. This law is totally evil, as I begin to think that Erdogan is and absolutely legitimatises rape.