Society shuns incest, laws lag behind in protecting victims

Observers also argue that the media often acts as the second abuser of the victims when they publish stories related to any crime of sexual abuse, including incest.

According to media reports last week, a 17-year-old girl in the Black Sea town of Karabük tried to commit suicide, and during her recovery treatment she said that she was constantly raped by her father. The police asked the elder sister of the 17-year-old to testify, and reportedly, the 34-year-old elder sister admitted that she is not the sister but actually the mother of the girl who was born as the result of being raped by the father. She added that she had had two children by the father, a boy and a girl. The boy was adopted by a family and the girl stayed in the family, as her younger sister.

In some publications reporting the incident, names were censored because one of the victims was under 18, but others chose to publish the full names of the victims. Detailed information on the family’s address violated the rights of the victims and exposed them to the public, causing them greater problems.

The law does not define incest

Experts emphasize that there are many problems regarding incest, but the main problem is the overwhelming invisibility of the subject, from within the law to research and protective measures. The only research about this type of abuse was prepared by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) this year under the title of “Understanding the Problem of Incest in Turkey.”

Nebahat Akkoç, the chairperson of the Women’s Center (KAMER), said in a conference in Hakkari in October that over the years, 50,000 women have applied to them for help and 25 percent of them were the victims of incest.

“Society is not ready to talk about it, and also we prefer not to comment on the issue because it might harm our efforts to help the victims,” she told Today’s Zaman.

The UNFPA report also suggests that incest might take place in all forms of family structures, including extended families and families with single or no parents.

Experts explain that incest cases mainly involve families from lower income groups because these groups constitute the majority of society and also that economic power helps conceal incest. Cases of incest are more likely to be covered up by families from higher income brackets without the involvement of a court. Pregnancy is a factor that often leads to incest being discovered, but again, it is easier for individuals of higher income and education to prevent pregnancy or terminate it through private health services, the report says.

The report stresses that in Turkey, the penal code does not contain a separate definition of incest and this constitutes a problem in every phase of the process, including revealing and judging it: “The sentences against incest are regulated in accordance with the kinship level of the aggressor. Establishing a legal definition for incest shall improve awareness. The needs of the child differ depending on whether the aggressor is from the family or not. There is no legal definition of incest, and, consequently, it’s up to the know-how and skills of the practitioners to take measures as per different needs. Defining incest shall facilitate joint action,” the report underlines.

Professor Selçuk Candansayar from Gazi University’s psychiatry department also says that incest has to be defined in the law but the Turkish legal system faces some problems in doing so:

“Certain marriage patterns in Turkey are considered as incestuous relations in other cultures, for example, marriages between cousins. Also in some places if the husband dies, his brother then marries the widow. Those kinds of traditions make it difficult to define it,” he told Today’s Zaman.

Teachers must also be trained

Candansayar also underlined that if a third person discovers a case of incest, they should report it to the police, but all the related professions, police and teachers have to be trained in protecting the victims of all kinds of abuse, including incest.

“One of the main difficulties is for those who witness incest but don’t know what to do. For example, a school teacher might not know if his/her student is being abused and they are silent too. This is why they have to be trained,” he said.

He said a system of protection should be established in which the victims will have no doubt that they will benefit from its services without being judged or harmed further and that they will be secure.

“If the victim or the teacher or the police know that there is a well-established system which will take care of the victims in all aspects of it, they will not choose to be silent,” he said.

The UN report, which suggests the system, also underlines that a multi-disciplinary approach is needed and media coverage has to be very careful: “The following points must be taken into account while presenting incest, like all other forms of abuse, in the media: provision of guidance for the victim and encouragement for the revelation of the incident; attention given to not reflecting suspected incidents as finalized cases; respecting privacy; avoiding news reports that might aggravate the victim’s mental trauma; avoiding reports that tend to stigmatize a specific socioeconomic group; and refraining from abetting abusive conduct.”