Child abuse and violence in government institutions

28 children were revealed to have been sexually abused and exposed to violence by employees in nursing homes "Sevgi Evleri"
Friday, 20 April 2018 23:01

28 children were revealed to have been sexually abused and exposed to violence by employees in nursing homes "Sevgi Evleri" ("Homes of Compassion") for children in the city of Uşak, Turkey, before 2014.

The first trial was held on April 19, where 16 executives of the homes were judged.

It was brought out that children, including disabled ones, between the ages of 7 and 16 were systematically abused and tortured by the executives and other employees of the homes. 9 children also confirmed in the trial that beatings were normalised in the institution, and especially S. T., a janitor, was told to have beaten, insulted, and humiliated many children.

Attorneys speaking in the name of the Commission for Women’s and Children’s Rights of the Uşak Bar requested the arrest of the accused with the possibility that they could affect the victims, witnesses, and the evidence gathered, since a part of them were still public officials. The request was denied. Provincial Directorate of Family and Social Policies, which was the representative of the children, did not attend the trial.

The trial was adjourned to September 26, 2018.

"Homes of Compassion " were founded by Turkey’s AKP government in order to care for abandoned children in the homes of 10-12 where they could be raised in a "family-like environment". In the days when the AKP government de facto ruled the country together with the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gülen's Islamist network, the homes were one of the institutions that the Gülen network organized. Today, under the guise of being associations or welfare foundations, other Islamist sects are active in these centres.

It was also revealed that, in 2013, children who lived in these homes, even brothers and sisters, were separated depending on their sexes.

The rampage caused by the Ensar Foundation, a fundamentalist Islamist foundation widely known to be in close relations with the AKP government, is still vividly remembered, when 45 children were discovered to have been raped and abused by instructors of the foundation.

The cases of child molestations increased sevenfold in the past 10 years. One out of every four molestation case includes a child. Hundreds of children are being sent to the Institution of Forensic Medicine for being abused. On top of all that, pregnant children recorded at hospitals are not reported to the police.

"We remind once again: Child abuses and molestations cannot be prevented without unveiling their relation to the ever increasing reactionism in the last fifteen years. This rule that constantly attacks the women and children cannot prevent molestations. Reactionism cannot create social value!" Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) said in a recent statement.