Like many Muslim countries, Turkey has a long and troubling history of child brides and arranged marriages. Some Islamic clerics have maintained that there can be no age limitation on child brides. They often note that Muhammad married Aisha when she was seven and consummated the marriage at nine years old.Just as Pakistan recently struck down its protection for girls from such abuse, the Turkish Constitutional Court annulled a provision that punishes all sexual acts against children under the age of 15 as “sexual abuse.” It is a major set back for girls and women in Turkey and another example of how the Islamic fundamentalists have taken over this once secular country under the authoritarian rule of our ally Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
A lower court insisted that the law is flawed for failing to distinguish between a four-year-old and a fourteen-year-old girl. Most people would find that distinction hard to stomach, but we have seen child brides as young as six in Muslim countries. The lower court also insisted that “consent” must be considered as a defense for girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
Recently, the same members annulled a provision that imposed at least 16 years of imprisonment in cases of child rape for the same reasons.
The vote was a close one: 7-6. However, with Erdoğan taking over every aspect of Turkish government and life, it is doubtful that the courts will remain divided in the future. Erdoğan has demanded that courts, journalists, teachers and every other profession adhere to his views at the risk of arrest.
International conventions treat 18 are the age of majority. International groups have condemned the decision as reinforcing the practice of child brides and the six dissenting members have called the ruling a cause for “public indignation.”
In the meantime, the Erdoğan regime has continued its demands that other countries shutdown media critical of the president or Turkey. It has officially protested stories in Western media on the stripping away of these laws protecting young girls. Erdoğan has been empowered in his efforts to silence the media after Angela Merkel caved into his demands that a comedian be charged for insulting him. Erdoğan has also been encouraged by the Obama Administration’s continued support even as he has rounded up critics, shut down media, and impose Islamic rules on the population.
Why are you illustrating this with a picture of a woman in a niqab? Comparative survey research done of muslim countries in recent years found that the niqab is the modal preference only in Saudi Arabia and a minority taste in Pakistan (while the more restrictive burka is favored by 11% in SA and has hardly any constituency anywhere else). The modal preference in the muslim world is the amina, which covers the head but leaves the face fully visible. Only a single-digit share of the Turkish public favored anything more restricted than the amina.
Paul,
My question to you is, why do you think any of this behavior is O.K.? As an adult, you should want the best for children. You should understand that their brains aren’t fully developed and kids do not have the soundest judgment. That something is happening doesn’t make it good.
You should not want older men being able to have sex with 15 and under, aged girls. If a man sees a young girl as an object for sex then he isn’t much of a man. He is an abuser. That’s hardly something to excuse in one’s own nation or in another nation.
JT’s point is that Turkey is a US ally. If you have noticed, USGinc. claims the need to invade non-allied nations for engaging in this behavior. Something is really f&&&-up about that.
Jill – we have made older men abusers legally. The age of consent was all over the place when I was growing up. It was 14 for girls in New Jersey. Are girls less mature today? Are they bigger babies? Or are we over-protecting them.
Steve Groen
The conditions that led to the American and French revolutions have little if anything to do with today’s conditions. Today’s circumstances revolve around fine tuning. Those standing in the way are comprised of three things: those at the top who want to maintain the status quo, those below the top whose first reaction is to complain and blame, and the fact that no society can support more than a few at the top, been tried, doesn’t work. The drive that demanded and caused the American and French revolutions came primarily from the middle classes. The effects of the taxes and economic limitations in the American Colonies had little if anything to do with the majority of the population. The founding fathers were idealists second and opportunists first as were those of the leaders of the French Revolution. The ‘people’ in the Colonies and then France were not starving.
John Hancock and his uncle operated an extremely successful ship’s chandlery that outfitted ships, supplies and crews that effected the expulsion of the Acadians from their lands of over two hundred years, good business. John Hancock was a loyal and profitable servant of the crown before he switched sides when he saw the opportunities. The same was true of almost all of the founding fathers. They made out well as did almost all of the population of the colonies. Although the taxation that Great Britain attempted, well deserved to pay for the protection from the French and the cost of expelling the ‘habitants’, may have been a rallying point, the ‘raison d’être’ was not that of the common folk. The American Revolution was won because a choice was given and those that stood to gain self importance from the revolutionaries joined up in greater numbers than those that stood to gain self importance by remaining a devoted royal subject. There were other factors: those French, the fact that Great Britain was stretched too thin what with a greater value in India in contest, and the logistical fact that those that inhabit the contested land have a decided advantage over the occupying army, what with the equality of arms.
This does not nor is meant to diminish the ideology and heroism that was the American Revolution. It is a simple set of facts that stands to separate then from now. The absence of these facts in the minds of some explains the rise of the great fist pounder, Trump.
The same was true during the French Revolution. Instead of Islam the mindless had the church. The peasants and urban dwellers had for centuries worshiped their royals and been disgusted with the clergy that lived the good life by the grace of the structure that kept everyone in their places. The immediate foes of royalty were the professionals. Lawyers, bankers, merchants, and other professions saw the risks of continuing on with kings and queens squandering the nation’s wealth and having no say in the affairs of state. The lower classes were fed, wined, and tobaccoed. Their angst and anger has always been there in a capitalist society. All they needed was a target. The intellectuals marshaled their anger and viola, 300,000 deaths later, the country had a dictator and what it always wanted more than anything, victories.
How else can you explain a second term of W? How else can you explain Trump? Unfortunately good old plain talk, simple jingoes, and lots of targets is the food of the mindless and there seems to always be someone who can see this.
Linking the dysfunction of the American system of politics of today to the conditions that preceded the American and French Revolutions is always an attractive knee jerk move, but it’s not the same animal. The essence of the institutions to make the changes necessary are here. Then they weren’t, and no one was actually starving or suppressed in any great way. If you want to see conditions ripe for revolution then look to Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. There you will find the suppressed, backward, religious fools that are the backbone of most revolutions. There they come in all flavors.
Interesting fact: Ishmael was the first born but illegitimate son of Abraham by his wife’s Egyptian servant Hagar, so he might be considered the first Arab. Ishmael’s sons became “princes”, according to Genesis.
His Genesis description goes like this. “He will be a wild ass among men. His hand will be raised against very man and every man’s hand against him.”
Paul,
Hormones in the environment which shouldn’t be there are indeed causing early sexual maturation in young girls. But the fact remains, these are still young girls.
I teach GED. In my classes one young girl after another has become pregnant early on and has one or more child. These young women, (one has a juvenile library card) are doing the best they can as parents but it has wreaked havoc on their ability to get an education and a job.
Further, if you read any of the literature on child sexual slavery, you will see that this is not a joy nor is it a wonderful opportunity for these girls. I think maybe some compassion for others would be helpful. As a man, you will never experience what this is like. A child’s brain isn’t an adult brain. Adults should protect the young, not dismiss harm to them with a wave of one’s hand. We owe children so much. Adults dismissing the rape of young girls by adults is just shameful.
The USGinc. proves it could not care less about the education or well being of young girls. We ally with some of the worst nations on this matter and of course, we have child sexual slavery in the US. So when our govt.’s “leaders'” tell us we are going to war to save women and girls, they are hypocrites and liars.
I ask you to become an advocate for young women, a real protector of girls and not be someone who dismisses harm to them as if it was of no consequence.
Jill – no teen mother or mother-to-be that I taught had ever been raped. Some had become sexually active around 11 years old. These girls were all going to high school and intending on going to college.
Do you know how a girl get ‘jumped into’ a Hispanic gang? They roll two dice. The number that comes up is the number of guys she has sexual intercourse with, one after the other. For the boys, they get beaten up by the number on the die. They both do this willingly.
Paul Schulte, ever the contrarian, right on queue. I highly doubt your opinion would extend to one of your own. You might consider going back to your other notable position: “Their country, their laws”.
Olly – I have no children, so that is not a problem. I did teach a significant number of girls/women who had gotten pregnant at 14 or 15 and had a 15 year old with 2 children by different fathers. I taught them when they were pregnant, when they were nursing and when we had to arrange day-care for them.
My opinions are always my own although I sometimes agree with others.
Steve,
Why the fixation on other people’s wealth? People from all rungs of the socio-economic ladder will do things to benefit or harm society. The degree to which they do either might be enhanced by their respective rung, but their actions are caused by the same fundamental source…human nature. Redistributing their wealth will do nothing to change their nature. We would be better advised to find a way to confirm a moral compass in our culture that respects natural rights than to “level the playing field” within a morally deficient society.
I see no problem in the change in the law. Children seem to be maturing sexually sooner these days and with our histories from other groups, pregnancy at that age does not end their lives.
Wasn’t the mother of Jesus about 14 when she married Joseph?
Humans have not developed intellectually much beyond animal intelligence where size and strength are the only determinants of dominance.
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
Issac writes, “Regardless of how life in the West may appear to be wanting from time to time, it represents evolution at its finest, worthy of a supreme being.” Huh?
If you think 62 people, most of whom are living in the US, owning as much wealth as half the world population (roughly 3,500,000,000 people) is somehow different from the circumstances resulting in the American and French Revolution and represents evolution at its finest, which you ordain worthy of a supreme being, you, George, Louis XV!, and his queen, Marie Antoinette, all need an indelible lesson in liberté, égalité, and fraternité,
The sad thing is Erdogan is as much a fundamentalist Muslim as I am a Hall of Fame pitcher. He uses Islam for political control. Now, I realize to a great extent the mullah’s and Iman’s do as well. But, this guy is strictly a politician.
Will the judges who supported the minority position now be sanctioned/removed?
Reblogged this on Truth Troubles: Why people hate the truths' of the real world.
As you know the issue here is the teachings of Islam itself. The “culture” of Islam is pure evil and the quicker the West gets their proverbial heads out of their asses the quicker the worlds children will be saved from these perverts.
My grandfather married when he was 17 and my grandmother was 14. In today’s definition they were both children.
I have a question. Why the law defines a child or a minor as anyone under 18? Why not under 17 or 16? Is there a biological link to that age?
In Islam, a person is considered responsible for his/her actions (adult) as soon as that person reaches the age of puberty.
There is also another concept, that is when a person reaches age of adolescence when he/she can make sound judgement after reaching the age of puberty.
Erdogan is on the prowl for a child bride. If a perverted aged pedophile like Mohamed can marry six year olds then it must be OK. As we travel further back in time the next accomplishments of the sickos who infest Islam will be lopping off heads of those who drink at the wrong fountain, lopping off heads to set an example, sacrifice to, well pick a pedophile. In the West we find ourselves sometimes confusedly mired in the finer points between individual and societal rights, freedoms and responsibility, but able to duke it out openly and without fear. Regardless of how life in the West may appear to be wanting from time to time, it represents evolution at its finest, worthy of a supreme being. Then we have Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the other Medieval cesspools where evolution is a dirty word. In the West, primarily the prophet is JC, a guy who preached all the stuff of which we hold holy, with or without belief. In Islam, the prophet is an old pedophile and is still referenced.
And now, here’s Po.
And yet Endrogan is the head of a NATO protected country…another example of an ally that views women as nothing more as conveniences for men. Dictatorial, theocratic and brutual. Nice, very nice.
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