Handan Tufan/JINHA

İZMİR – A young rape survivor in Izmir province has spoken up to tell the truth after the Turkish media re-traumatized her with their coverage of the event.

TRIGGER WARNING

The press, without asking the young woman's permission, broadcast her photograph and quoted her as saying, "I begged them to kill me." The young woman said the quotes represented her as powerless and the coverage re-traumatized her.

"They put things I never said in my mouth," said the young woman, who survived rape by three men in the Izmir town of Buca. "I never begged to be killed, I never stayed silent, and I want the perpetrators to be punished," said the young woman, speaking to JINHA.

Events started when she and her boyfriend were driving in a car alone. The attackers, who pulled their car over with a gun, attempted to threaten her by saying they would call her family and tell them she was alone in a car with a man. She replied: "What's it to you? Go ahead, call." That was when they attacked her.

When she went to police afterward, she originally planned to tell only the part of the event in which the attackers forced her and her boyfriend's car over with a gun, but later decided she should relate the rapeitself so that she could push for justice."I'll never give up the case. No woman should have to experience that kind of violence," she said.

But the next day, she saw reports on the event in the newspaper that were re-traumatizing. The reports published the survivor's identity and photography, while not even mentioning the identities of the three attackers.

"It's good for these events to be known," she said. "But they didn't expose the men themselves; they exposed me and victimized me a second time. I didn't say a single one of the things [the media quoted]. I didn't say to kill me. It's good that they didn't kill me; they could have hurt other people too."

The young woman's main goal in going to police was to protect other women, she said. She said she will work for justice for others like her.

(fk/cm)