Turkish Supreme Court reverses punishment of sexually abusive mother and partner

DÜZCE

The Supreme Court of Appeals has reversed a judgment sentencing a woman and her partner to nine years and four months in jail after they attempted to force the former’s eight-year-old daughter to have sexual intercourse with the latter.

In its ruling, the court argued that the plot did not go beyond the “preparation phase,” daily Cumhuriyet has reported. 

A local court in the northwestern province of Düzce had found a woman guilty of “attempting the crime of sexual abuse,” by forcing her eight-year-old daughter into sexual intercourse with a man, with whom she was having an extramarital affair, in 2011. Both the woman and her partner were sentenced to nine years and four months in prison. 

Reports indicate that the woman, identified only by the initials F.Ü., forced her child to have sex with the man, identified only as A.G., after her asked her to “prove her love [for him]” by permitting her daughter to be raped. 

The woman tried to persuade her child to have sex by beating her and forcing her to watch porn, until gendarmerie forces received an anonymous notice about what was happening. 

The gendarmerie subsequently wiretapped phone calls between F.Ü. and A.G., during which the two plotted the child’s rape through various methods ranging from plying her father with sleeping pills and abusing the girl inside her home to abducting her from school and then raping her outside. 

However, upon reviewing the case, the 14th Criminal Chamber of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals reversed the local court’s sentencing of the F.Ü. and A.G., arguing that their actions were only in the “preparation phase” and fell short of a “sexual attempt.”

The decision was approved by the Assembly of Criminal Chambers, which will lead to the acquittal of both suspects. 

The sexual abuse of children have recently been high on Turkey’s news agenda, after news about a teacher raping eight male students at a private foundation hit headlines and sparked public outrage late on March 2016. New cases have been surfacing ever since, leading to questions on whether cases of abuse are on the rise or are becoming increasingly visible. 

According to 2014 figures from the Justice Ministry’s General Directorate of Judicial Records and Statistics, 18,104 cases on charges of child sex abuse were opened in 2014, with courts delivering 24,825 rulings in total. In 2014, 13,968 people were convicted on charges of child sex abuse in Turkey. 

Official figures show that there was a gradual increase in such cases from 2002 to 2005. After the new Turkish Penal Code (TCK) went into force in 2005, there was a short-term decrease, but from 2008 to 2012 a steady increase was seen in child sex abuse cases.