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Summary: Lawyer Asma claims that the judiciary does not protect exploited children, but their families: "The family who forced their child to marry should have been tried under Article 233; the punishment was insufficient."
"As long as the state protects parents who force their children into marriage and husbands who act violently towards their wives, we cannot control child abuse. The government needs a serious policy on this issue. The changes in the Turkish Penal Code are meaningless as long as they are not carried out. The whole system has been influenced by a male perspective." Parents married fifteen-year old daughter to 40-year old man Türkay Asma, lawyer for the Centre for Children's Rights of the Ankara Bar Association, evaluated a recent case for bianet. A fifteen-year old girl was forced to marry by her parents. The parents were punished with the newly introduced "Controlled Freedom Law", which allows the courts to punish defendants with community work rather than prison sentences. "They should have been tried under Article 233 of the Penal Code, which deals with violations of family law." According to the Radikal newspaper, the parents of the girl, who was married to 40-year-old A.D. in a religious marriage, were sentenced to 60 days community work; the father was given an additional fine of 600 YTL (around 350 Euros)., "Child marriage is not a 'misdemeanour'" Asma argued that the punishment reflected the perspective of the judge and prosecutors in the case. A punishment with community service is given for misdemeanours, which, Asma argued, was inapplicable in this case. Asma said that the family should have been tried under Article 233 of the Penal Code: "A person who does not fufill the responsibilities of care, education and support as stipulated in family law shall be punished with imprisonment of up to a year if there is a complaint." Asma further said that the community service handed out to children and adults was meant as a sanction; however, there also needed to be control over whether the punishments were carried out. "Can this be a sufficient punishment for a family who forced its child into marriage, thereby exposing it to sexual abuse and taking away its right to education? Changes are made in the laws, but the new laws are not applied. Those children are the children of all of us...If you hand out such punishments, it means that you are protecting the family [rather than the child]. For instance, if a father abuses his child, does that not mean that you are allowing incest?" "Judges and prosecutors are insensitive" Giving examples from previous cases she was involved with, Asma said that daughters had been taken into protection and fathers had been arrested. In such cases, said Asma, the family of the child often put pressure on the child not to file a complaint, and lawyers were also threatened: "Children are not protected. We cannot make this a livable society in this manner. Judges and prosecutors are insensitive, when what they should be doing is think of their own children whenever there is a case with a child involved." (GG/TK/AG)