Forced marriage

Family and Social Services Ministry has made field visits to cities with high rates of early and forced marriages, has prepared reports and has given training, within the scope of the prevention of early marriages.

The Turkish government is planning to reduce the ratio of underage as well as forced marriages in the country from five percent to one percent through an action plan regarding the issue prepared by the Family and Social Policies Ministry for 2018-2023, daily Milliyet reported on Aug. 31.

It was the 1980s when a strange girl from the Black Sea appeared in my grandmother's home in Ankara. S., a 15-year-old village girl with a lopsided face, looked as if she could run away any moment; she never talked. She was kidnapped and raped by a village boy, we, the kids, were told... The boy was in love with S.' sister and wanted to kidnap her, but in the dark, he mistook S.

Child brides in Turkey are often raped, beaten and forced to undergo virginity tests, according to Eylem Atakav, the director of a new documentary which aims to break the silence on the taboo issue. 

"Growing Up Married," due to premiere in London on Oct. 30, examines the impact of child marriage on four women who were forced to marry at a young age in western Turkey. 

The number of girls who were wed before the age of 18 since 2010 is higher than 200,000, Turkey's Family and Social Planning Ministry has said in response to a parliamentary inquiry by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). 

Bulgaria will sign the Convention of the Council of Europe on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the government has decided.

One third of marriages in Turkey involve underage girls, according to a women's rights lawyer speaking at a conference that was called to tackle the problem.

"There are 181,036 child brides in our country, unfortunately," ?zmir Bar Association Central Executive Board Member and women's rights advocate Nuriye Kadan said during the conference in ?zmir on Dec. 6.

Canada's Immigration Minister Chris Alexander Wednesday unveiled plans to ban entry to migrants who practice polygamy and what he termed "barbaric cultural practices."