The Politics of Child Abuse in Turkey

When the news on the accusation of one of the writers of the daily newspaper ‘Vakit’ for abusing 14 years old girl was released, Turkey was shocked. People were giving more or less similar reactions as they have given to any ‘child abuse’ case. The offender was condemned and people started to wait for a trial which will possibly end with the imprisonment of 76 year old Hüseyin Üzmez, a lawyer and a writer in a daily newspaper which is known with its radical Islamist inclinations. However, people realized that the previous news was ordinary when they realized the real shock: Hüseyin Üzmez is released since the Turkish Council of Forensic Medicine gave an approval on that they did not receive any implication of damage in girl’s mental and physical health. Many civil society organizations mostly women’s organizations held protests after the trial and especially on November 25, the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women’.


The Public Reactions via Conflicting Protests


The collective reactions by civil society were considerable. In these reactions the Council of Forensic Medicine’s report was at the center and most of the protestors claimed that the report on the mistreated girl’s psychology was invalid. The protests towards the report of Council of Forensic Medicine were meaningful, since, the council’s decision directly affects the court’s punishment of the accused and draws the limits of this punishment.
According to the article 103 of the Turkish Penal Code, sexual abuse of a child is punished with imprisonment from 3 to 8 years. One of the following parts of the same article (103-6) clarifies the issue: If the sexual assault results in damage in victim’s physical or mental health, perpetrator is punished with imprisonment not less than 15 years.[1]


The council’s decision is still open to critics since it is problematic, even may unjust, and do not fulfill the answers of further questions. Moreover, public reaction to the issue was significant and deserved more attention. However, women’s demands to reach an act to protect women from violence are coincided with many other groups’ protests toward government. Since Üzmez is seen a conservative figure with his ‘radical’ background, many directed their protests toward government via the child abuse case. Thus, the case went beyond being an ‘ordinary’(!) abuse and turned into a public political case. Although people’s reflection of their restlessness on the decision (report) of a body of Ministry of Justice is meaningful and worthy of consideration, the conflicting aims of the protests were diversionary.


As a common approach, in these cases, the public reaction to the issue differs. Like the cases on violence against women, the mistreated girl was embraced by women’s organizations as a result of women’s internalization of the problem. The girl, thus, somehow, is pushed to carry her role of woman more than her role as a child. The problem is considered as an abuse towards the women’s rights, which is mostly true, however, the child’s side of the issue is somehow underscored. Thus, such attempts to protect the rights of women gains support mostly from women while men’s internalization of the issue stays weak. In the cases of this kind, it should be kept in mind that the mistreated one is a child and needs protection from whole more than an adult waiting support from her gender.


Defenseless Child in the Web of News


The high attention towards the reports of child abuse had some unintended effects as well. The increasing media reports and public worry focused on the dreadful details of sexual abuse which caused “trivialization, if not, commercialization of child abuse.”[2] The girl was reduced to a fogged face that is running into a court, or trying to get rid of the journalists who were following her in her every step; while the accused were visiting TV channels with his cocky lawyers and his head up. It was not that easy to differentiate who was to blush with the consequences of his/her behavior or who was to be proud.


Beyond what has been said, while the media attention to the issue grew higher in accordance with the public reactions, the girl’s rights and protection may abused as well. People found out where the girl lived and who her family’s close neighbors were, what her father’s job was and even how much he has been gaining monthly. Somehow, the details on sexual abuse were everywhere as well, which did not help to protect the child but assisted to damage her severely.


Moreover, the leading figures in many TV channels were more than volunteer to host Üzmez in their TV programs, and listen his unendurable comments on irrelevant topics like how religious he was and how his deviant behaviors can be legalized under certain conditions. The media figures’ competition to host and condemn the accused resulted in his open self defense more than helping public to produce a collective action towards the cases of this kind and to create an agenda on the improvement of the laws on protection of the vulnerable. Thus, unfortunately, most public reaction was a result of a constructed rage against the accused and the case appeared as a discrete one. However, it was a reflection of the chronic problems which we face in any child abuse case not only in Turkey but also all around the world.


Through a Global Conceptualization of the Politics of Child Abuse


As we focus on the scope of the politics of child abuse in the world, we see that the measures are not limited to sexual abuse but are covered under a broader title ‘violence against children’ or ‘child maltreatment’.


“…child abuse reports have been growing for the past ten years, with the total number of reports nationwide increasing 45% since 1987. In this data, the analyses showed that girls are three times more abused than boys. However, boys are under greater risk of serious injury and of emotional neglect than girls.”[3]


As National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse in the US announced, the child abuse cases is increasing in the US as it has been declared by other countries including Canada, Australia, England. Moreover, the UN Secretary-General’s Study on ‘Violence Against Children’ supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) defines the child abuse as a widespread global problem.[4]


Figure 1: Cases of Child Maltreatment in Canada[5]





The UN’s study acknowledges governments about the scale of the problem and calls them to respond the human rights obligations they have accepted. The evaluation of the study reveals that many governments are on the way to reduce the multiple impacts of the problem and they try to conduct prevention strategies as well as therapeutic responses. The strengthening national and local commitment and action, promotion of non-violent values and awareness raising, enhancing the capacity of people who work with and for children, providing recovery and social reintegration services and developing and implementing systematic national data collection and research are listed among the recommendations of the UN study to the states in global community in the report.


As indicated by the extensive studies, the measures on the prevention of child abuse and provision of well functioning politics on the topic necessitate the collaboration of wide variety of fields. Furthermore, the measures should be supported by the laws to clear the fog on the issue and to address the responsible government bodies directly.


Since the violence against children is a widespread problem, the politics of child abuse require globally accepted measures against the cases of this kind. Thus approaching the child abuse as a discrete case and merely condemning the accused do not provide practical answers to the global standing of the problem, but may help to marginalize the case.





Dilek Aydemir (JTW)


December 4, 2008


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