‘Trial Without Arrest is a Second Trauma for the Abused Child’

* Photograph: Twitter

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

12-year-old E.S. was sexually abused by Mehmet D., the imam of the mosque where she went for a quran course in 2015.

Almost three years later, the school counsellor realized the situation and initiated the legal process against the man.

In 2018, a lawsuit was filed against Mehmet D. Having been arrested for five and a half months, he has been released from prison. In the last hearing of the case held at the Tarsus 2nd Heavy Penal Court in Mersin on March 21, the request for his arrest has been rejected again.

'Acquittal doesn't mean he is innocent'

Adem Yaprak, a lawyer from the Association for Struggle Against Child Abuse (UCİM), has spoken to bianet about the judicial process ahead of the final hearing to be held on March 29.

Yaprak has stated that though they requested the arrest of the abuser and the Prosecutor's Office demanded his penalization in its opinion as to the accusations, the court board has still rejected the requests for arrest.

Yaprak has also added, "When E.S. and her mother collapsed in their armchairs upon hearing the verdict of the court, the Presiding Judge told them, 'You are always saying the same thing. His acquittal does not mean that he is innocent and you have lots of attorneys, anyway. You can go to the upper court and demand justice there'."

"That a judge uses such a sentence before announcing the final verdict is, in fact, against the law. We have also initiated the necessary legal process about it," lawyer Adem Yaprak has further stated.

'There is no justice for us!'

Stating that E.S. as well as her mother and sister felt faint after leaving the court hall, Yaprak has recounted the remarks of the mother:

"Are these things happening to us because we are in shalwars [traditional baggy trousers], because we are peasants? There is no justice for us!"

'We make our children miserable in judicial process"

Underlining that the trial of abusers without arrest in such cases hurts children, lawyer Yaprak has also stated the following:

"Especially in such cases, trial without arrest gives the following impression to the child: 'He/She did me this harm, but he/she can still roam freely.'

"There is very clear evidence in the file of this case, there is a report by the forensic medicine institute. But, they have still ruled for a trial without arrest, which causes a second trauma on the child."

Yaprak has also indicated that though the testimony of E.S. was taken in company with a pedagogue in the first hearing, there were not specialists appointed in the following hearings:

"We actually suffer from that as well. For their health and psychological well-being, children must always be accompanied by a specialist pedagogue in the hearings. We are struggling for that.

"If a child suffers for once and if he or she demands justice, they should not suffer for the second time in this process, which is already quite wearing. While it is quite a wearing process even for us adults, putting the child directly in such an environment and in its plainest form is not really right."

Yaprak has also stated that they have launched a campaign on social media about the issue under the hashtag #tarsuscocugunasahipcik (Tarsus, lay claim to your child). (AÖ/SD)