{"id":10737,"date":"2016-08-17T15:15:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T15:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=10737"},"modified":"2016-08-17T15:15:58","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T15:15:58","slug":"turkey-made-legal-sex-children-lowering-age-consent-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=10737","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Has Made it Legal to Have Sex With CHILDREN After Lowering Age of Consent to 12"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Constitutional Court has ruled to annul a provision that punishes all sexual acts against children under the age of 15 as \u201csexual abuse,\u201d stirring outrage from academics and women\u2019s rights activists who warn that the decision will lead to cases of child abuse going unpunished.<\/p>\n<div>The Constitutional Court discussed the issue upon an application from a district court, which complained that the current law does not discriminate between age groups in cases of child sexual abuse and treats a 14-year-old as equal to a four-year-old.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The local court said the law does not provide legal consequences for the \u201cconsent\u201d of victims in cases where the child victim is from 12 to 15 years of age and able to understand the meaning of the sexual act. \u201cThis creates an imbalance between legal benefits and sanctions that should be preserved in crime and punishment,\u201d the application stated.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-g-rec td-g-rec-id-content_inline \"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3329935618909486\" data-ad-slot=\"7339504057\" data-adsbygoogle-status=\"done\"><ins id=\"aswift_1_expand\"><ins id=\"aswift_1_anchor\"><iframe id=\"aswift_1\" name=\"aswift_1\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/ins><\/ins><\/ins><\/div>\n<p>With seven votes against six, the Constitutional Court agreed with the local court and decided to annul the provision. The decision will come into effect on Jan. 13, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The local court\u2019s argument and the Constitutional Court\u2019s endorsement have drawn a backlash from academic and human rights circles, which underlined that all individuals under the\u00a0age of 18 are considered children according to international conventions to which Turkey is a party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, every individual under the age of 18 is a \u2018child\u2019 according to international conventions. Seeking a child\u2019s consent in cases of sexual abuse is out of the question,\u201d the chair of the Association to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect, Professor Bahar G\u00f6kler, told Turkey\u2019s state-run Anadolu Agency.<\/p>\n<p>G\u00f6kler said this \u201ccalamitous\u201d decision was in violation of child rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The head of the Child Rights Center of the Ankara Bar Association, Sabit Akta\u015f, also warned that many children will suffer from the decision.\u201cWe can foresee what this decision will bring about. Those jurists who are distant from society in their ivory towers should go to courtrooms to see and hear what those children go through when describing their experiences. They should only make a ruling on this issue after doing that,\u201d Akta\u015f said. The coordinator of the Istanbul Women\u2019s Associations, lawyer Nazan Moro\u011flu, challenged the argument of the local court that made the appeal in the first place, underlining that every judge has the option to choose between the legal upper limit or the lower limit, based on the nature of each case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3289 td-animation-stack-type0-1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viralwomen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Screenshot-76.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.viralwomen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Screenshot-76.png 517w, http:\/\/www.viralwomen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Screenshot-76-300x125.png 300w\" alt=\"Screenshot (76)\" width=\"517\" height=\"215\" \/><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWe are looking to see whether we can make an appeal to annul the decision. We could go to the European Court of Human Rights,\u201d she added.Six members of the Constitutional Court dissented from the ruling, saying it would \u201ccause public indignation.\u201d<br \/>\nThe Court has recently also annulled a provision that foresees at least 16 years of imprisonment in cases of child rape for the same reasons. That annulment is set to come into effect on Dec. 23, 2016.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Constitutional Court has ruled to annul a provision that punishes all sexual acts against children under the age of 15 as \u201csexual abuse,\u201d stirring outrage from academics and women\u2019s rights activists who warn that the decision will lead to cases of child abuse going unpunished. The Constitutional Court discussed the issue upon an application [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}