A 13-year-old Turkish girl was married off by her family to her rapist who paid them "the price of a truck" to escape a long jail sentence, newspapers in Istanbul reported today. The story came to light when public officials realised her family had tried to change her age to 16 to make the marriage legal. The girl, from the village of Damlibogaz, in western Turkey, was 10 years old when a family friend, aged 20, started sleeping with her. The rapes continued for a year before she fell pregnant and gave birth to a girl. Her rapist, Ferit Cicek, was sentenced to 18Âœ years in jail. His family then promised the girl’s family 10 billion Turkish pounds ($9600) for an arranged marriage which would allow the young man to walk free.
Turkish law currently allows sharp reductions in prison sentences for rapists who agree to marry their victims. In 2002, 546 men took advantage of the procedure and another 163 in the first four months of 2003, according to official figures. Parliament is in the process of amending the law to close the loophole. The young girl was married off by her farm-working parents last month in a ceremony at the local prison after they, and two witnesses, testified before a court that she was three years older than officially believed. The parents now face a prison sentence of three to eight years for lying to public officials. "They sold me for 10 or 12 billion pounds. With it, my father wanted to buy himself a truck," the young girl told reporters. Her father also accepted to be interviewed by reporters in exchange for money. "I’ve got to think of myself," he told Aksam newspaper. |