Tensions rose overnight in Turkey’s parliament on Saturday where opposition MPs protested strongly against ministers they accuse of inaction over a child sex abuse case that sparked an outcry in the country.
“The child has spoken, you have remained silent, but we will not be silent!”, “Resign!” chanted opposition lawmakers holding placards as Family Minister Derya Yanik addressed the budget debates in the Turkish assembly.
Many MPs also banged on their benches and booed the minister.
When Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu spoke, elected officials threw up their placards in protest.
The case of a woman who filed a complaint against her ex-husband and his parents, whom she accuses of forcibly marrying her off when she was six, sparked outcry in Turkey this week. This woman’s father is an influential leader of a religious brotherhood, of which the ex-husband is also a member.
Now 24 and divorced, the victim claims to have been sexually abused since the age of six.
The victim filed his complaint in 2020 in this case where no arrest has yet taken place.
Timur Soykan, the Turkish journalist who exposed the case by publishing excerpts from the young woman’s deposition, was the victim of a lynching campaign on social networks by conservative groups who accused him of “insulting to Islam”.
The Turkish opposition accuses the Islamic-conservative government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of leniency towards religious brotherhoods and of not taking the necessary measures to protect minors entrusted to these groups by their parents.
“Child sexual abuse and violence against women is a subject that goes beyond politics. We cannot tolerate victims being used for political purposes,” said Yanik.