MAP Forum

AGI - Heavy sentences in Turkey for a paedophilia case that has deeply shaken the country in recent months. The case of a woman H.G.K., now twenty-five, who after her divorce reported her ex-husband and her parents, has aroused indignation and disgust. The latter forced her to marry at the age of 6 to a man who was twenty-nine at the time of the marriage. The judge has put an end to this story with a sentence of 36 years for Kadir Istekli, the man who had taken the child as a bride, and 18 years and 9 months for the father Yusuf Ziya Goksel, both prominent members of an influential religious brotherhood called Ismailaga. The fact that the marriage of this child bride took place in Istanbul, a metropolis that is the beating heart of the country and not in a remote province, has created even more indignation and uproar. The indisputable sign of the power and influence of religious brotherhoods such as the Ismailaga, considered close to the government and present in various areas where it manages student residences and offers lessons in reading the Koran. A marriage decided by a domineering father, who preaching a questionable and radical vision of Islam allowed his daughter to end up in the hands of another member of the same brotherhood and marry him, despite the enormous difference in age. A marriage that was presented to the little girl 'as a game', as emerged from the trial, while it was something terribly serious.

The complaint dates back to 2020, however the news emerged last December only thanks to the journalist Timur Soykan of the daily Birgun. The doubt remains that justice officials have imposed silence on the case because they are close to the brotherhood. In fact, no parliamentary question has taken place in the months following the complaint in a country where marriage between and with minors has been formally prohibited for decades. Today's decision came after the first sentences had been annulled, making a second trial necessary. A circumstance that raised protests from public opinion, which feared that the defendants could get away with it. However, the indignation raised by this story, made public by the daily BirGun and since then followed by the media, social media and the public, united in calling for justice, prevailed. The sentence, which took into account the sexual abuse suffered by the young girl from a very young age, was welcomed with satisfaction by all those who want to turn the page on a past with which Turkey believed it had long since come to terms. And there has been no shortage of accusations against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ended up in the crosshairs of much of public opinion because he is believed to be close to religious brotherhoods, including the Ismailaga to which the protagonists of this terrible story belong.

Fragment wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 2:06 pm One reason I worry about child marriage is because at the negative extreme it can basically amount to rape and slavery. Rather than empowering the minor it can function as a social or economic between two adult men without the desires of the child being taken into account.

We can't know all the details from a short news article. But if the surface evaluation is true, then this is a case that should be illegal even if child marriage itself is legal.

• Same can happen with adult-adult marriage. After all, forced marriage between adults isn't unheard of.
  
  Any negative event that happens within an intergenerational relationship (or any toxic intergenerational relationship) is then used by antis to tar us MAPs by wrongly generalising what might be edge cases to the MAP community as a whole.

Same can happen with adult-adult marriage. After all, forced marriage between adults isn't unheard of.