JINHA

AMED – There is still no conclusion in a three-year ongoing case related to the sexual abuse of five children by their teacher in the city of Diyarbakır, Turkey, which had its most recent hearing yesterday. The legal procedure has resulted in the re-traumatizing of the students, say women educators who attended the hearing.

The rate of child abuse has increased 400% in Turkey over the last five years. 70% of the victims are girls. Yesterday, a Diyarbakır court saw the most recent hearing in a child sexual abuse case now entering its third year of a drawn-out trial. Educators' union activist Müyesser Gülcemal was forcibly ejected from the courtroom for objecting to the fact that the five girls were arbitrarily summoned before the court yesterday to give testimony despite the fact that they already have.

Teacher Düyaüddün Toprak, who is accused of sexually abusing five of his female students at a primary school, is being tried free on his own recognizance and continuing to work as a schoolteacher in Diyarbakır. The girls are still attending the school.

When one of the girls testified in court yesterday that in fact, all the girls in the school were being abused, but they did not know that what was happening to them was sexual abuse, the defendant lawyers doubted the children's testimony. The lawyer blamed the school counselor for "pressuring" the girls in their testimony and said that the reports of widespread abuse were a result of "overcrowding that caused teachers and children to stand close together."

"Abuse is not just sexual abuse," said Müyesser Gülcemal, who is women's secretary of educators' union Eğitim Sen, speaking after the hearing. "Violence against a child, depriving them of their rights, withholding their education, obtaining economic profit, distancing them from their native language and marrying them at a young age are all individual forms of abuse. The children being brought to court once more today is a repeat of this violence."

Women educators are calling for the case, whose sentence is already clear, to be finished as soon as possible. The next hearing has been called for July 6.

(sg/fk/cm)