Minister slams ‘rush for divorces’

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

AA Photo

Turkish couples are rushing too quickly to divorce their spouses, Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin said over the weekend during a presentation in Istanbul on prenuptial education, adding that 14,000 of the 80,000 people that remarry after divorce did so with their former partners.

“We cannot sacrifice even one family,” she said Sept. 1 at the Haliç Convention Center.

Defending support for families, the minister said: “A strong family does not mean weak women; these are not alternatives of each other. We believe in strong families as a conservative, democratic party.”

Şahin said it was important that marriages included a sense of responsibility, empathy, sharing and trust, as well as love and respect. “The first five years is so important. Research has shown that 40 percent of divorces occur in the first five years because it is the time in which people are trying to understand each other.” There are between 500,000 and 600,000 marriages each year in Turkey, the minister said, adding that there were 100,000 divorces per annum – a number that is below the world average, she added.