The mother of Sıla, Bakiye Yeniçeri, brought her daughter with severe bruises to a public hospital in Tekirdağ with the excuse of “her being dropped off by her neighbor and getting injured." Yeniçeri was returned to the hospital, and doctors reported her to the police after examining the unconscious Sıla with bruises and traces of beating. It was determined that Sıla, who was examined, had a brain hemorrhage; findings indicating that she had been subjected to physical violence were obtained on her body, and she was intubated. She died in the hospital on October 7. The other 5-year-old daughter of the family was taken into protection.
In a statement made by the Tekirdağ Bar Association on September 11, it was announced that forensic reports confirmed that Sıla had been sexually abused. Sıla was abused and raped by several neighbors, such as K.A. (32), her 13-year-old son K.A., and 14-year-old G.K., which are now detained. The suspects were given a jail sentence by the judge. "I realized my baby was being abused, but I was scared. I threw the bloody diaper in the trash to cover up the incident," said Yeniçeri, confessing how she remained ignorant and kept leaving her baby alone with her abusers.
Just with a few days difference, in Osmaniye, a 14-year-old teenage girl was raped. After E.B. (14) filed a complaint with the police and gave the names of 18 people who raped her, claiming that she was sexually abused, an investigation was launched by the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. 8 of the 18 people that were charged with raping the child were released.
The proposal for a deeper investigation into the murder of 8-year-old Narin Güran, whose lifeless body was found on the bank of a stream on September 8, following a 19-day search after her disappearance on August 21, was rejected by AKP and MHP votes. “We saw how society has decayed and the justice system has failed,” said Sezgin Tanrıkulu from CHP after the voting session.
According to the data given by the Ministry of Justice, child abuse cases have nearly doubled between the years 2015 and 2023. Another piece of data provided by the Stop Femicides Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu) showed that there have been 220 women killed this year, with 15 of them being under 18.
The International Children's Centre (ICC) stated that reported sexual abuse cases are "the tip of the iceberg" of violence against children. Accordingly, in the child sexual abuse cases concluded in court in 2023, 7,088 defendants were convicted. In 2013, the number of defendants convicted was 13,925. ICC experts comment on this data as "while we have more child sexual abuse crime cases, there are fewer prosecutions and convictions, and fewer defendants."
The Istanbul Convention was a human rights treaty adopted in 2011 by Turkiye as one of the first participants, which is the first legally binding instrument aimed specifically at protecting victims and prosecuting perpetrators, obligating signatory countries to adopt legislation measures to combat violence. It prioritizes the protection of children's rights, safeguarding those who are victims or witnesses of physical, sexual, or psychological violence, calls for action against forced marriages involving children and stresses the need to ensure their safety and access to education, health, and support services. The Convention recognizes children as individuals with equal rights and condemns all forms of discrimination, regardless of race, gender identity, or social origin and mandates special protections for child victims and witnesses throughout legal proceedings.
Ironically, as the first country to sign the convention, Turkey withdrew from it in 2021 by a presidential decree from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The government defended the withdrawal by claiming that the convention was being misused to promote “homosexuality” and was not aligned with Turkey’s societal and familial norms.
Justice Ministry data shows that the number of investigations into child sexual abuse in Turkey doubled in 2023 compared to eight years ago. In each of the more than 66,000 investigations conducted by chief prosecutors' offices in 2023, at least one child was a victim.
While the failure to implement the Lanzarote Convention, which is a convention that protects children against sexual exploitation, and Law No. 6284 on the protection of children from sexual abuse, withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, the lack of trials of perpetrators and predetors, impunity, and the promotion of patriarchal and sacred family policies instead of children's rights continue to endanger children's right to live, the ministry of justice insists that it is combating these crimes with “delicate care.”
Edited by: Oya Yamaç