ISTANBUL — Government officials in Turkey on Saturday stepped up their defense of legislation that would allow men to evade punishment for sexual assault by marrying underage girls they abuse.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag insisted that the bill was aimed at regulating the problem of child marriage and that it is not intended to grant amnesty to rapists. The proposed law would not apply to cases in which force is used.
Among the Roma community the problem was especially frequent, Bozdag was quoted as saying by the Dogan news agency.
He charged that men often married underage girls at the behest of their parents.
Critics from women’s rights groups and secular opposition parties said the proposal would effectively legalize existing instances of child marriage and would not help fix the problem.
The bill applies only to criminal cases opened before this past week.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim charged that the opposition was playing “dirty politics” with the issue.
Parliament will vote on the bill Tuesday. It received a majority of votes this past week, but that session did not have the needed quorum to pass it.
Some have questioned how a minor can legally be considered to have given consent to an adult for sex, part of the government’s justification for the bill.
Marriage under age 17 is prohibited in Turkey, unless there is court permission. The government says the automatic opening of cases against men who have sex with minors results in cases where families are broken up.
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