A dirt hole

The latest shameful news came from the eastern province of Ağrı.The latest shameful news came from the eastern province of Ağrı.I wonder if you read the news, headlined “They called the rape a joke,” by Hürriyet reporter İsmail Saymaz.The story described the rape of a nine-year-old student by a 17-year-old teacher, identified only by the initials Y.K., at the İmam Buhari Quran School male dormitory in Ağrı. The incident came to light when Mehmet Arslan, another teacher in the same dormitory, reported it to a local prosecutor. When we look at the details of this report, we see that the “dirt hole” is even deeper.

Claiming it as a joke? 

The other students had already reported the situation, after their friend was identified with purple spots on his face and neck.“Our teacher was kissing him and taking him on his lap,” said one. The family of the child came forward to the school to ask what was going on. But they were sent back. The school authorities told them that the children were just “joking around” when they kissed and rolled around on the floor together.The dirt hole gets deeper when we look at the school’s efforts made to gloss over and erase the traces of this incident.And it gets even deeper - as recently seen in the example from the province of Adıyaman - when we think about claims suggesting that the chain of protection rises higher and higher in the hierarchy.And it gets yet deeper when the following events take place: - Officials announce bans on the news instead of uncovering the mean and sick men who hold the supposedly sacred duties of a teacher or a religious official.- People get scared to talk about these issues, despite the fact that the news reports come almost every day from every corner of Turkey (and we only hear are the ones reported in the media).- Guilty convicts are released from jail quickly or kept in prison for only short periods,  or even easily escaping from punishment by putting the crime onto other people’s shoulders.

Everyone is watching

Apparently we cannot in Turkey protect children or inspect the areas that must be checked. We make our children dependent on unknown institutions, or we give them to the hands of spiritual exploiters, who hide behind the veneer of education. We watch those mean men, who we cannot control, harass those children, who we cannot protect.We watch their families become helpless. The dirt hole is getting deeper and we are only able to watch it together, along with the “officials.”It is our innocent children who are pushed into this horrible mess. Both those who have the authority and those who do not must feel shame.