Domestic violence and femicides continue plaguing Turkish women while authorities look into the causes of prevalence. Minister of Family and Social Services Derya Yanık told Anadolu Agency (AA) that forced marriages at an early age perpetuated the "cycle of violence" women are exposed to.
In a recent interview, Yanık said such marriages restricted women’s lives. “They have a shorter period of education, face challenges to join the workforce. Their self-development is restricted and they lag behind other women in terms of participation in social and economic life,” she lamented.
Early marriage is a social problem in Türkiye where the phenomenon is more prevalent in rural areas. Experts say it has social legitimacy despite an official ban, and outdated social values and economic factors are major factors behind those marriages.
Yanık said the successive Justice and Development Party (AK Party) governments have been committed to tackling the issue since 2002 and took significant steps, through awareness campaigns for girls’ education and legal measures to prevent forced marriages at an early age, which “bore fruit.” In 2002, the country raised the legal marriage age to 17 from 15. It also increased prison terms for those involved in the sexual abuse of underage persons, in a bid to end the notorious “forced marriage of raped girls with the perpetrator.” The country also increased the mandatory education period to 12 years. “This step was actually an important milestone to prevent early marriages,” Yanık said. In the past, early marriages often ended up with girls being forced to drop out of school as the mandatory education period was far shorter. With longer education years and monitoring the families who force their children to drop out of school, the government managed to curb early marriages and helped more girls to have access to education.
The minister said they concentrated their efforts in provinces with a high rate of early marriages with an action plan in 2017 and “emergency plans” were put in place in 23 provinces. Plans include awareness education, an expanded task force to prevent early marriages and assistance of local community leaders to eliminate the phenomenon. “Eventually, the rate of early marriages dropped by 71%,” the minister said. “The rate of marriage of girls between the ages of 16 and 17 was 7.3% in 2002 and as of 2022, it is around 2.3%,” she stated.
