Hearing of child abuse case preponed four months

ISTANBUL

The child abuse case which has shaken the entire country as the victim was a 6-year-old girl at the time of her forced marriage has been rescheduled to Jan. 30, 2023, being brought forward by four months, upon the request of the Family and Social Services Ministry.

The woman, identified only by the initials H.K.G., accused her father, Yusuf Ziya Gümüşel, the head of the Hiranur Foundation affiliated with İsmailağa Jamia, of forcibly marrying her to a sect member in 2004 when she was just six.

The allegations came to the country’s agenda and caused a bombardment of cursing posts on social media platforms when a daily published the story on Dec. 3.

The prosecutor asked for an over 67-year prison sentence for İstekli with charges of “child abuse” and “sexual assault.” Another 22-and-a-half-year prison sentence was asked for each of H.K.G.’s parents on the charge of “sexual harassment of children.”

According to the indictment, H.K.G. applied at the prosecutor’s office on Nov. 30, 2020, just after she was divorced from Kadir İstekli, alleged to be her husband by the imam marriage at the age of six and legal marriage at 18.

The first hearing of the lawsuit, first scheduled on May 22, 2023, has been moved up by four months, to Jan 30, 2023.

“The process will be closely followed, and all kinds of legal support will be given to the victim,” the Family and Social Services Ministry said in a statement.

It also made a request regarding the detention of the suspects, Minister Derya Yanık said, speaking to NTV broadcaster.

The first investigation into the case started in 2012 and was closed after the report of a bone age test at the hospital, as the statement given by H.K.G. was also one of the reasons for the end of the investigation.

H.K.G. claimed that someone else was put through the bone age test instead of her in 2012, adding that the statement in this investigation was not her own, but that her family had her sign a statement they prepared.

Gümüşel family denied the allegations, saying that H.K.G. is suffering from some mental illnesses.

Her two sisters testified that they “never heard their father asking any of the sisters to marry at early ages.”

“My daughter was engaged at the age of 16 and legally married at 18. She was mentally depressed after suffering a miscarriage. She was talking fantasia,” H.K.G.’s mother, Fatma Gümüşel, alleged.

The case also causing anger on social media came to the parliament’s agenda on Dec. 7, when Sera Kadıgil, a Workers Party of Türkiye (TİP) MP filed motions to six ministries.