Holy shit, talk about taking things out of context. This is a massive alteration by the shit-rag called the independent, and no one is surprised. It's borderline false news.
Ok for the sake of everyone involved, here's what's really going on :
1. What this law is
This is a weird and morphed Romeo+Juliet law.
Here's a definition. The gist of it is this : If you are an adult (which means 18+ years old in Turkey) and if you have sexual contact with a minor (which means 17 years old or lower in Turkey)
then what you participated in is called Rape. There's even a special name for rape of this kind, it's called Statutory Rape. You can read the link if you want more information.
Why is consensual sex between two people considered rape? Well the argument is, as an adult you have the mental capacity and means to trick and coerce the minor, the minor's actions cannot be said to been the result of a sound mind. This is called
statutory rape - the definition means there is
NO physical assault or violence involved. That is another kind of rape and it's not covered by any of these laws.
BUT, the problem here is this, most people in romantic relationships aren't exactly the same age.
So a 17 year old in a romantic relationship with a 20 year old isn't really out of the norm. But if they get caught or if the parents file a complaint then the 20 year old will face a huge amount of jail time.
To circumvent this problem, most nations came up with the idea of laws specifically designed to bypass these small age differences. The argument is that a
16 year old and a 19 year old don't really have that much mental capacity difference between them. So to treat one as an adult and the other as a brainless child is stupid.
2. Romeo + Juliet Laws
Basically these laws have small frames set into them to protect young people from having their lives turned upside down just because they were (of course) having sex. Because hormones, being young etc. etc. you can't realistically expect young people to not have sex - that's absurd.
So most civilized countries (and some dipshit ones like the US) have created laws that have a minimum age requirement (like 14, 15 or 16) and a maximum age difference between the two partners (like 3 or 4 years, maybe 5) and basically say "you know what, in this relationship both parties have about the same mental capacity and none of them should be treated as having power on the other, so let the kids have sex and leave the juridical system alone with this bullshit just because helicopter parents can't cope with the concept".
And this is a great thing to have.
3. What this law ISN'T!
Get out of rape law. You can't marry your rapist and be done with it
if you've physically raped the person. Violent rape isn't covered by these kinds of laws.
It also doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with religion. It's really pathetic to try and merge the two concepts together. SMH.
4. Turkish version of the law...
...is utter bullshit. Because of a lot of problems. Here's a list :
- The Turkish version doesn't state a minimum age (yet). And I don't trust the idiots in the government to specify anything sensible like 15 or 14 at most. They could even count 9 - we don't know yet, but I'm not optimistic.
- The accepted age difference is humongous. It's 11 years. What the actual ****?!!! Let's say the minor is 16 years old - that means the adult can be 27 years old and their relationship is not between a minor and an adult? Bullshit. Think even more extreme. What if the minor is 12 years old? That means a child of 12 and a grown asshole of 23 will be counted as a couple. What the actual **** is all I can say.
- There is a marriage condition set it. Like wtf people. We as a country need stable and strong families and marriages. We don't need young idiots that don't even know how to properly write their name be married just because their genitals were humming when in proximity of each other. This is insane. The marriage condition should be dropped ASP!
5. Pro's and Con's for this law
Pro's :
- Innocent kids having sex are being punished like violent assholes who kidnap people and rape them. This idiocracy needs to stop. So a law like is DEPERATELY NEEDED!
- Sex with people close to your age needs to be accepted. We as a culture should understand that young people are going to want to **** - and they ARE going to **** - no matter what we do. The best idea is to at least prevent long lasting damage and maybe educate them so they can practice safe-sex.
- Sex as a taboo actually heightens domestic abuse cases, ultra jealous types wrecking havoc and thinking it's ok. If we pave the way for healthy sex and a mentally healthy outlook on sex most of Turkey's domestic violence problems could be fixed. Sex is not taboo and it's motherfucking natural, these laws pave the way for people not sneaking into dangerous places to get it off.
Con's :
- The way the current law is drawn up is stupid. There needs to be clear minimum ages that are acceptable (like not 12 year olds).
- The maximum age difference should be limited severely. Maybe not a number but a percentage? How about %20? I know it's not 11 years.
- While I'm all in favour of sex losing it's taboo status and teens being educated about safe and healthy sex and relationships, there's also the undeniable fact that kids are idiots. Teens more so. So while trying not to **** up their life with jail we could be encouraging them to get pregnant (they're idiots, this'll happen more), get STD's (again, they're idiot edgelords) and equating sex with a relationship. Early age sex does have negative annotations like this, and these kind of things need to be explored by psychologists and socialogists alike.
Too long - didn't read?
This law doesn't cover violent rape cases - it only covers consensual sex between close-aged minors/adults.
BUT Turkey's version is problematic as it stands.
BUT IT IS NOT THE BARBARIC BULLSHIT the SHIT-RAG INDEPENDANT IS MAKING IT OUT TO BE!
