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Campaign of the week Stop Turkey's Child Rape Bill

OPPOSITION to Turkey’s sickening child-rape bill is growing in Britain, with a petition demanding it is scrapped initiated by the chair of transport union TSSA’s women’s section.

Sarah-Jane McDonough, who is also a Labour Councillor in Stevenage, said she was inspired to start the campaign after reading in the Morning Star about the legislation, which will grant an amnesty to child rapists who marry their victims.

“I was appalled that I had seen no coverage of this outside of the Star. People need to be made aware of what is happening,” Ms McDonough said.

The union has led the way in campaigning for Turkey’s opposition People’s Democratic Party (HDP), and passed a motion at its annual conference in support of jailed and at-risk journalists.

TSSA Women in Focus sent a message of “love and solidarity” to the HDP 3rd National Women’s Conference held in Ankara over the weekend, pledging to “stand by you in your fight for women’s rights and in the face of all injustice. When you are being silenced, we will be your voice.”

And it agreed to send a delegation to meet the opposition party’s women’s platform in the wake of the Turkish government’s attacks on its co-chair system, which guarantees gender equality.

Ms McDonough described the bill as “horrifying” and said the union would continue to stand with the women of Turkey and, by starting the petition, show the authoritarian government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that “the whole world is watching.”

Brirish-based Kurdish women’s organisations are also angered over the bill. 

Nejla Ari from the Kurdish People’s Assembly explained that the bill is being introduced in the context of narrowing rights for women in a patriarchal society and “legitimises child marriage, and statutory rape.”

“The other day, in Kutahya, a 12-year-old girl was taken to hospital after having severe stomach pain, later it turned out it was due to pregnancy. The baby died in the womb due to some complications and this was what was causing her the pain. They performed a emergency c-section on her. After her procedure she was submitted to a protective care home. Nothing was reported to the police – the doctors remained silent, and the family remained silent. 

“Another story, is one of a 14-year-old girl in Konya who for two years was continously raped by her brother every time she went home from boarding school in the summer breaks, and no one reported it to the police. In the end, when she was admitted to hospital due to her pregnancy, her brother was reported to the police by hospital staff. 

“This is what the lawmakers will be pardoning – this kind of case will increase, and ultimately children will forever lose their childhood.”

She said it showed how much work there was to do, urging people to come together “and raise our voices even louder.”

Ms McDonough warned that the Labour Party needs to do more, and that “despite years of suffering under a brutal authoritarian regime, women's voices in Turkey have fallen on deaf ears in Britain.”

Branding the party’s foreign policy on Turkey “weak,” she laid down the gauntlet for the new Labour leader, reminding them that in 2018 Labour promised to be the party of international social justice.
 
“We remain ever grateful to those who fought for and won rights for women, here in Britain. Now we must take our fight to Turkey and other places where women are treated like this,” she said.

“We must demand better for these women who have already been told by Erdogan that equality for women is "against nature". This International Women's Day we should promise to be the voice for our sisters in Turkey.”

The petition can be signed at https://www.change.org/p/turkish-government-stop-child-abuse-victims-bei...

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