"Secular" Turkey: 28% of marriages involve child brides

Flying Broom(woman's activist organization in Turkey): Child brides in Turkey

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Flying Broom News Center

16/08/2011

"When my friends were going to school, I, as a little girl of 13 had been married with a man, a friend of my father, in his 30s. I was scared when he was at home. I could even not enter in his room. I'll never forgive my father," said an unnamed child bride from Van province, now in her 40s.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of child marriages in Turkey as many go unreported or are unofficial "imam" (religious) ceremonies. "This makes the situation more problematic as they are not registered officially, making it difficult to track them," attorney Vildan Yirmibesoglu told SETimes.

However, according to the Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies' data, the early marriage rate in Turkey -- defined as marriage at 17 years of age and younger in the 15-49 year-old age group -- is 28% on average. The number includes unofficial religious marriages and shows regional variation, with highs of near 41% in eastern and southeastern Turkey.

"When thinking of including women over 49 years of age it wouldn't be incorrect to say the numbers would be much higher," Dr. Ilknur Yuksel-Kaptanoglu of the Institute of Populations Studies told SETimes, adding that "Even though the numbers have been falling over the years, they are still high and continue to be a problem."

According to a recent report by parliament's Committee on the Equality of Opportunity for Women and Men, many families in eastern Turkey do not consider underage marriage a problem.

The Flying Broom Women's Communication and Research Foundation is one of the most influential civil society organizations campaigning against child marriage. They are active in 54 cities, meeting with child brides to give them a chance to tell their own stories.

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The consequences of early marriages can be significant. It often leads to children dropping out of school and perpetuates the poverty cycle, but according to Guner it also contributes to domestic violence, incestuous relationships, health problems, and even death.

Girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are four times more likely to die in childbirth than adult pregnancies. According to statistics based on Yirmibesoglu's recent case studies, a quarter of women suicides in Turkey are from the age range of 14-16.

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More info can found in the following PDF by the Flying Brides organization:
Flying News publication on ‘Early and Forced Marriage’

Turkey #1 for child porn searches, 400,000 children abused by relatives

Hurriyet: 400,000 minors abused by inner circle person in Turkey: Report 

July/22/2013

Up to 400,000 children have been sexually abused by family members or relatives in the past 20 years in Turkey according to official reports, Turkish daily Taraf reported July 21. 

Reports from Social Services and the Child Protection Institution, and the Children Bureaus of the Police Department have shown that the number of under-aged being sexually assaulted by a family member or someone close to the child or family lies between 350,000 and 400,000 in the last 20 years. Reports have shown that 80 percent of the perpetrators either directly know the child or the parents closely.

Only 27 percent of sexually abused children shared their situation with someone, though this usually happened long after the assault took place, while the larger part did not tell anyone about the abuse they underwent. A total of 32 percent of these children did not speak to anyone about the sexual assault even after they became adults.

Reports also showed that Turkey ranked number one in searches on sexual images of children within the 13-19 years age bracket, while Turkey tops the list in searches for the words “çocuk pornosu/child porn” on the Google search engine. The children aged between 13 and 19, who can be seen in sexual images and footage found online, number over 36,000. Of these children, 42 percent are under the age of seven, whereas 77 percent are aged nine or younger. Only one percent of the children whose images are put online could be identified.

Turkish nationalism/fake secularism: take only material civilization from the West

With the Gezi protests, many Western idiots have taken to believing in the fantasy of democracy in Turkey, because the Kemalist demographic doing most the protesting has decided to present it as a struggle of democracy to gain outside support. However in an Islamic society like the Turkish, democracy is not a goal held by any powerful segment of society. What Turks want is only the material civilization of the West, in the vain hope of gaining in some distant future enough national power to make new sieges against Vienna and Belgrade. They want to keep the spirituality and mentality Islam, no matter how secular they claim they are(by Turkish standards: which are low standards for secularism). Thus all that there can be in Turkish society is the powerful dictating and compelling the vulnerable.

Don't support the fake secular ideology of Turkey known as Kemalism and don't support Kemalists.

The theme that a patriotic Turk should try to achieve a balance between the benefits of the West and the East by opting for adopting the science and technology of the former and the spirituality of the latter is repeated quite often in the schooling system designed by the educational establishment in Turkey. This difficult endeavour is almost like a mission for every patriotic Turk. Hence, it is possible to argue that since the days of the early Westernization efforts. the Turkish psyche has been burdened with the difficult task of achieving a balance between the Western civilization and the Turkish culture. ... Patriotic Turks try to resolve this tension by achieving a balance between the materiality of the West and the spirituality of the East. However, the achievement of such a balance is quite enigmatic since a combination of Western civilization and Eastern culture, when transposed to the realm of nationalism renders itself as an insoluble problem.

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A preoccupation with this balance between modernity and tradition, Western materialism and Eastern spirituality as well as Civilization -- based on the premises of Enlightenment -- and Culture -- based on the premises of Romanticism -- is a recurring theme accompanying Turkish modernization. The desire to achieve such a balance is nowhere better expressed than in Ziya Gokalp's (1876-1924) works. Ziya Gokalp's ideas were wavering between the three trends of Islamism, Turkism, and Westernism, hence, reflecting the political climate of the context in which he was located. As Niyazi Berkes puts it: `He was fighting within himself the battle that intellectuals and politicians were raging on other levels'.(20)

Ziya Gokalp produced his basic writings between the years 1911 and 1918 when he was associated with the Party of Union and Progress against the emotional background of the period laden with nationalist movements among the non-Muslim and non-Turkish peoples of the decadent Ottoman Empire. While on the one hand, there were those intellectuals and politicians who opted for a social reconstruction by way of reversion to Seriat (Islamic law), there were those who staunchly supported the idea of Westernization, on the other. In addition to these two groups, there were others who longed for the romantic ideal of the pre-Islamic Turkic unity. Ziya Gokalp was influenced by all of these trends. Yet, he envisaged a middle road in the tradition of Namik Kemal: `that only the material civilization of Europe should be taken and not its non-material aspects'.(21) Yet, contrary to Namik Kemal's thought, Ziya Gokalp did not think that the individual and his reason could be a criteria for social reconstruction. Ziya Gokalp rather signified a shift from Tanzimat rationalism inspired by the eighteenth century thinkers of the European Enlightenment to the nineteenth century Romantic thought in the tradition of the German philosophers by accepting the transcendental reality of society identified with the nation instead of individual reason. Berkes sums up Ziya Gokalp's convictions in the following manner: `As the ultimate reality of contemporary society is the nation, and as national ideals are ultimate forces orienting the behavior of the individuals, so the most urgent task for the Turks consisted of awakening as a nation in order to adapt themselves to the conditions of contemporary civilization'.(22)

Source:

Ayse Kadioglu, "The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction of Official Identity," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, no. 2 (April 1996)

21.1% National Inbreeding/Consanguinity Rate in Turkey

Due to Islamic strictures and prohibitions against males and females inter-mingling with their unmarried peers of the opposite sex, Mahometan Turks have a high rate of inbreeding, despite the ruses of Kemalist modernists. When family forbids socialization with peers of the opposite sex or makes it difficult, the young have to narrow their focus amongst their related cousins and other relatives that they are allowed to socialize with and inevitably develop feelings there or have a family member notice "how well" they get along together, so why not arrange a marriage.

Ann Hum Genet. 1994 Oct;58(Pt 4):321-9.

Pubmed.gov: Consanguineous marriage in Turkey and its impact on fertility and mortality.

Tunçbílek E, Koc I.

Source

Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies, Ankara, Turkey.

Turkey has a high rate of consanguineous marriage (21.1%), indicating strong preference for this traditional form of marital union. Social and cultural factors are especially important in marriages between first and second cousins. Fertility is high, the closed birth interval is long, and the sterility rate is low among these couples. Post-neonatal, infant and under-5 mortalities are high in first cousin unions by comparison with non-consanguineous marriages. According to the results of the study, first cousin marriage is a significant determinant underlying the high total fertility and infant mortality rates in Turkey.

Sly Turks of the Kemalist variety will blame this high rate of inbreeding on Kurds, but even the Turks of Western Turkey or "white Turks", have a high rate of consanguinity:

Annals of Human Biology: SHORT REPORT Consanguineous marriages in Denizli, Turkey

1999, Vol. 26, No. 5 , Pages 489-491 (doi:10.1080/030144699282598)

M. TURE, B. TUGRUL, N. MERCAN, H. TURE, B. AKDAG

For the study 1000 families were interviewed during 1996 in the city of Denizli, which is situated in Western Anatolia and has a population of 79 211 families. The overall rate of consanguinity was 11.7% ... The principal type of consanguineous marriage recorded was between first cousins, which accounted for 49.6% of all unions. For both sexes, a significant negative association was observed between consanguinity and mean age at marriage and level of education.

But the rate is higher in Eastern Turkey:

The frequency of consanguineous marriage in eastern Turkey.

Akbayram S, Sari N, Akgün C, Doğan M, Tuncer O, Caksen H, Oner AF 

Department of Pediatrics, Yüzüncü Yil University Faculty of Medicine, Van, Turkey.

Genetic Counseling (Geneva, Switzerland) [2009, 20(3):207-214]

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METHODS: This study was performed in Van region, Eastern Turkey, between September 2005 and April 2006. A total of 650 families from 24 districts chosen in accordance with the number of inhabitants were included in this study. First cousin marriages were accepted as a first degree CMs, sesquialter and second cousin marriages as second degree and marriages between distant relatives were accepted as a third degree CM. ...

RESULTS: Of all families, 224 (34.4%) had CM, and 168 (75%) had first-degree consanguinity. A lower CM rate was found in mothers who graduated from secondary school or upgrading (p < 0.01). However, no relationship was found between CM and fathers' education level. While a low CM rate was found in families who had two or less children (p < 0.01), high rate was observed in families who had five or more children. In addition, a high rate of miscarriage, stillbirth and mental-motor retardation was found in families with CM (p < 0.05). The rate of child mortality between the aged 0-2 years was found to be higher in families with CM (p < 0.01). The higher CM rate was observed in families who married due to pressure or insistence of their families than married voluntarily (p < 0.05).

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According to another study, even on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, inbreeding is increasing amongst the rural populace, not decreasing.

The only friend of a Turk: other Turkish Mahometans

A famous saying of the chauvinist Turkish nation is: "The only friend of a Turk is another Turk."[1] However since the fake Turkish nationalism/secularism is just a re-adaption and even greater narrowing of Islamic allegiance from a wider Islamic ummah to an even smaller Turkish national ummah, one finds that is just a nationalist re-adaptation of the following Surah:

Chapter 3 Surah 118

PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.[2]

Turkist theorist Ziya Gökalp elevated the elevated the national to a religious level, which explains their ultra-nationalist penchant as a nation:

Gokalp gave "the nation" an important mystical component. In his work, "he transferred to the nation the divine qualities he had found in society, replacing the belief in God with the belief in the nation: and so nationalism became a religion."[43] The national is deified, thus expanding Durkheim's idea that "society can do as it pleases." So, if a nation perceives itself in danger, it feels no moral responsibility in its response to that danger. The Unionist "scientific approach" gained a "sacred" character through Gokalp's theories.[3]

As Ali Osman Egilmez, observed in a previous posting on this blog, the Turks are modernist, seeking a modus-vivendi between Islam and the West, and not modern. Thus the Turkish saying admonishing Turks to take only as friends other Turks, is just a re-adaption and further narrowing of a Surah.

[1.] Wikileaks Cable: 06ANKARA6118, 26 Oct 2006
[2.] The University of Leeds: Qurany Tool: Al-Emran Verse No:118
[3.] Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp. p. 57.
cited in: Akcam, Taner. A shameful act : the Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility. (Metropolitan Books; 2006) pp. 88-9.

AKP: Take Turkish children back from gavurs and gays

The Islamic, chauvinist AKP Regime has began a campaign to retrieve Turkish colonist children in Europe from gavur(infidel) foster couples, starting with gay couples. They are particularly focusing on the case of 9 year old Yunus taken from the Azeroğlu family in the Netherlands after claims of abuse by his family. Ayhan Sefer Üstün, head of the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Commission, which was instructed to conduct research on the matter stated: "the child has been given to a foreign culture, to a lesbian family. Even if a child is taken from the family for the right reasons, he or she should be placed with a family closer to his or her culture.”[1]

Furthering, this line of Islamic bigotry, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ has stated that Turkey was waging a massive campaign, and mobilizing diplomatic effort for the 4,000 Turkish children in Europe given to Christian families. He said that European authorities do not respect either the sensitivities or values held by Turks and stated: "Turkish families do not want to give their children to gay and lesbian couples."[2] However, Aygul Özkan, Germany’s first female minister of Turkish origin, currently a minister for social affairs in Saxony since 2010 commented: “There are no Turkish foster families in Germany, and therefore the children of poor Turkish families who cannot afford to raise their children are adopted by families of other nationalities. There should be Turkish foster families instead of German ones."[3]

Thus the issue cannot be that Europeans infidels and sometimes gay ones are adopting Turkish colonist children, that apparently local Turks won't adopt anyway. The issue has to with Turkish identity: Islam and the concept of Turkishness. According to article 301 of the Turkish penal code: 

1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.

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3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.[4]

If you notice to keep the Turkish-Islamic identity or Turkishness intact for Turks abroad, it merits a greater judicial threat, since they cannot enjoy the oppressive Turkish bandit state threatening them daily! One Turkish, Gulenist religious authority is very unequivocal:

According to Imam al-Ghazzali, Islam’s legal principles seek to protect and secure five basic values in human life, namely, religion, life, intellect, personal property, and reproduction, and forbid acts that will nullify them. When we consider the Divinely established prohibitions (e.g., unbelief, hypocrisy, associating partners with God, apostasy, killing a person, taking intoxicants and drugs, usurpation, theft, adultery, fornication, and homosexuality), we can deduce that they have been given to protect and secure those values. ... 

Sexual Perversion: A Major Sin. Islam, while regulating one’s sexual drive, has prohibited illicit sexual relations and all ways that lead to them, as well as homosexuality. Homosexuality is considered a reversal of the natural order, a corruption of male sexuality, and a violation of the rights of women. The spread of this unnatural practice disrupts a society’s natural life. It also makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, thereby depriving them of decent taste, decent morals, and a decent manner of living. The Qur’anic account of Prophet Lut’s (Lot) people should be sufficient for us.[5]

At issue is that the AKP regime feels sacred values that uphold Turkish identity are being violated. One of the few Turkish colonists in Europe who actually fostered children, Nejla Buran, sums up the concern: “I think [children] are way happier if they are placed in Turkish families, who speak their language, cook meals like their mother does.”[6] This whole fiasco is because in the bigoted Turkish mind, the issue is not over who is a better parent than the abusive Turkish families, but who is a more Turkish parent. According to a poll by the Reputation Institute, Turks have the biggest gap between their self reported, self-image and their global score(what other parties think of their nation).[7]  Within their own sociology Turks associate Turkishness with goodness. A famous slogan of their eternal, fascist leader, Ataturk, that is oft repeated goes: "A Turk is equal to all the world."[8] 

The real loser in all this is likely Yunus. His lesbian foster family has gone into hiding over this row.[9] Do all the bigoted Turks in the AKP and their fans actually think the presence of Turkishness is more important than being free of abuse? Do they really believe that the anti-gay sentiments of illiberal Islam dating from the 7th Century AD are more apt than the investigations and determinations of the Dutch child social services? 

[1.] Hurriyet: Turkey attempts to retrieve child from foreign gay couple. February 18, 2013.
[2.] Zaman: Turkey working to bring Turkish children out of European foster care. February 18, 2013.
[3.] Zaman: German minister: Number of Turkish foster families should increase in Germany. February 26, 2013
[4.] Amnesty International: Turkey: Article 301: How the law on “denigrating Turkishness” is an
insult to free expression(PDF). p. 1. 

[5.] Büyükçelebi, İsmail. trans. Ali Ünal. Living In The Shade of Islam. (Fountain, 2003) p. 270, 272. (Which is digitized online here.)

[6.] Russiatoday: Turkey wants Turk-born kids brought up in native culture. February 27, 2013.

[7.] CNN Travel: Which country has the best reputation? Sept. 21, 2012. 

[8.] Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture: Ataturk Declares. 

[9.] Dutchnews: Lesbian couple go into hiding with Turkish foster child. March 15, 2013.

Turk-Islamic sexual hypocrisy leads to anal fixation

Turks often like to lecture gavur(infidels/non-believers) on how unlike them we lack morals or values. Compared to their very rigid religious proscriptions about how they should live as Mahometans there is some relative truth to this.

Prohibition of Privacy between a Man and a Woman Who Are not Married to Each Other. Islam prohibits a man and woman who are not married to each other from being alone together in a private place where there is no fear of being interrupted by someone else. This is done to prevent such illicit sexual activities as touching, kissing, embracing, or having sexual intercourse.

Looking with Desire at the Opposite Sex. Islam prohibits people from looking lustfully at people of the opposite sex, for the eye is the key to the feelings, and the look is a messenger of desire. The Qur’an declares:

Tell the believing men that they should lower their gazes and guard their chastity; that is purer for them. God is well acquainted with what they do. And tell the believing women that they should lower their gazes, guard their chastity, and not display their adornment, except that which is apparent of it, and that they should draw their head-coverings over their bosoms. (24:30-31)

Source:
Büyükçelebi, İsmail. trans. Ali Ünal. Living In The Shade of Islam. (Fountain, 2003) p. 271.
Which is partly digitized online here.

However, the operational reality is that all those restrictions and the societal pressure to conform just pushes them to deviancy to skirt the insipid system of sexual repression:

Radionetherlands: The right of young Muslimas to have sex
Muslim parents in the Netherlands tell their daughters to stay virgin until the day of their wedding. An impossible requirement, says Senay Özdemir. It only leads to hypocrisy and disturbed family relations. Young Muslim women should have more freedom to experiment with sex before marriage.Former tv-presenter Senay Özdemir is a young Dutch woman of Turkish origin. As the editor of a digital magazine for women of immigrant background, SEN Magazine, she knows very well what is going on in the minds of young Muslimas in the Netherlands. Last week she published her view in an opinion article in the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad.
..."Young women of immigrant background increasingly consider oral sex as something quite normal and feel they can't refuse their boyfriends when they ask for anal sex, as that would not damage their virginity."And when their virginity is lost, they can still have it restored by an operation or take refuge in a host of traditional tricks to make sure there is blood on the sheets after the wedding-night. 

...

So in the end all that Islamic force aimed at conformity and submission to create an allegedly chaste society, leads to a Turkish society where sexual deviancy has become normative.

Related blog posts:
Turkish males misbehave amongst scantily clad female beach-goers
Turkish sexual morals and prostitution

AKP's Sunni Chauvinist foreign policy has domestic blowback: report

Bianet: Report Reveals Discrimination Against Turkey's Alevis

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An Alevi association annual report reveals at least 60 right abuses including board-marking of apartments with Alevi residents, discrimination of Alevis' funerals were committed in 2012. 

Nilay VARDAR, 31 January 2013, Thursday

                    ...

The report listed 60 different incidents in 2012 diverging from board-marking of apartments with Alevi dwellers to Turkish state's discriminatory practices toward Alevi funerals and arsons cases in sacred Alevi places.

Ali Kenanoğlu, association chairperson, discrimination toward Alevi people from government authorities skyrocketed in 2012 and physical attacks on Alevi people became "routine" on evening news.

"We can also resolve this issue with a new constitution where the Turkish state will be entitled to approach all religious equidistantly and not to favor an semi-official state religion," Kenanoğlu said.

Some of the remarkable incident from the report included:

...

* Ostracizing: Rumors spread that dozens of apartments inhabited by Alevi people have been board-marked in Adıyaman, Antep, Erzincan, Balıkesir, Istanbul and Mersin provinces. In Izmir province, Çiğili district's Alevi residents were said to receive notes inviting them to the faith of Islam.

* Attacks: During the islamic holy month of Ramadan, an Alevi resident's apartment has been reported attacked after he complaint on the public drum noise to wake up people for fasting.

* Ill-treatment on Alevi sacred places: Municipalities in Istanbul and Mugla provinces ordered the deconstruction of two cemevis (Alevi prayer space) due to their "unsuitabilities for construction". While an arson was reported in a cemevi in Istanbul's Kartal district, the walls of another cemevi in Yeşilkent district has been destructed by bulldozers. A cemevi in Kadikoy district complaint that their electricity was cut down by the municipality. A failed arson attempt was reported in a ceremony tent built in Erzincan province during Alevi's holy month of Moharram.

* Injustice: Several Turkish court verdicts reinforced the government approach denying cemevis as a religious practice place.

* Threats: Hundreds of students with Alevi origin complaint that they received threats from school administration to enroll in Islam religion class.

* Education: Education Ministry included two chapters on Alevi faith on school textbooks. Most Alevi parents interpreted the ministry's move to force their children to enroll in Islam religion classes. Alevi parents' request to exempt their children from compulsory religion classes were denied.

* Funerals: No army or government officials attended the funerals of 2 slain army soldiers because they were held in cemevis. Other slain cemevi soldiers' funerals held in mosques were attended by dozens of officials from the government and army.

* NGOs: Police raided an Alevi association in Dersim province, detaining its administrators.

* 1993 Sivas Massacre case: A general feeling has established among society that the remaining few suspects for involving in 1993 Sivas Massacre could benefit from the statute of limitations. (NV/BM)