The Central Steering Board of the Education and Science Workers' Union (Eğitim-Sen) demanded to reveal the people who are to be held responsible for the child abuse scandal in Siirt in south-eastern Anatolia.
The rape case of Siirt emerged to the surface when 14-year-old student H.T. had told her school counsellor that she was being abused by the deputy principle of the school. The incident was forwarded to the prosecutor's office.
It came to light that the older sister of primary school student H.T. was exposed to similar abuse when she was in fifth grade whereupon she dropped out of school. Another girl coming from an equally poverty-stricken family as the two sisters had also been abused.
Eğitim-Sen announced in a statement, "The investigation must not conceal the incidents, the offenders should be revealed and punished regardless of their position and the children that were exposed to abuse should urgently be protected". Eğitim-Sen declared to follow the issue up until the responsible people were brought to court and convicted.
Male "solidarity", hypocritical morality, violence and poverty
"The violence that surfaced in Siirt displays the dreadful dimensions of the degeneration of the society's conservatism and the solidarism that paves the way to hiding the names of the male suspects". Eğitim-Sen mentioned the following key points in their announcement:
- Siirt, as part of a region that has seen conflicts for years, is one of the provinces with the most significant violence and socio-economic decay. It is not a coincidence that the girls who were exposed to abuse come from extremely poor families who do not even have the strength to appoint a lawyer.
- These people were left desperate by conflicts, violence and forced migration. They have been paralyzed by the hypocritical moral understanding and have been exposed to a crime against humanity committed by a society without values.
- It is worth clarifying the fact that people in the district refrained from informing media representatives, saying that they had concerns of associating the name of Siirt with a negative issue. The incident was persistently hidden from the press; people did not want to have their names connected to such a terrible incident.
- The people who tried to protect the name of the city, names of well-known families or public officials have their share in this crime against humanity. We give our credit to the school counsellor who was brave enough to take the responsibility and make the incident public.
100 people arrested, 25 detained
Statements of more than 100 men aged between 16 and 70 years old from all social stratums have been taken in the course of the investigation. 25 of the interrogated males were detained. (BB/VK)
