Turkey withdraws bill after protests over child-sexual assault clause

Rare concession to popular will comes after critics say freeing
offenders from jail if they married their victims would legitimise rape

Kareem Shaheen
Tuesday 22 November 2016 08.33 GMT

Turkey’s government has withdrawn a controversial bill that would have granted amnesty to some men convicted of child sex assault if they married their victims.

The announcement on the bill, a rare concession to popular opposition in the country, came after street protests at the weekend and criticism from civil society groups, including a women’s rights organisation whose deputy chief is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daughter, Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar.

The proposed amnesty for some child sex offenders was part of a larger bill approved by lawmakers in ahearing to reform the criminal code. It would have suspended the sentences of men convicted of sexual assault of a minor if they married their victims and could prove the act was carried out without force or “restriction on consent”.

The Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, had said the bill would be withdrawn in its current form and revised, but the justice minister, Bekir Bozdağ, later said the government would not seek to table a new proposal on the matter.

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