Originally published 2020-02-16.
Turkey did not pass a law forcing rape victims to marry their attackers. What happened is narrower, but still alarming to many: in January 2020, lawmakers from the ruling party revived a proposal that would have let men convicted of sex offences against girls under 18 avoid punishment if they married the girl, provided the age gap was under ten years. A similar measure had already collapsed in 2016 after mass protests. Critics at home and abroad called both versions a "marry-your-rapist" law, because in practice they would reward abusers who wed their victims.
Below is what each proposal said, why it was put forward, why it drew so much anger, and how it fits into a wider story of laws like this being scrapped around the world.
What the 2020 proposal would have done
According to reporting at the time, the plan first surfaced in parliamentary debate on 16 January 2020, with supporters expected to table it formally at the end of that month. The core idea was a suspended sentence: if a man convicted of a sexual offence against a minor married the victim, and he was less than ten years older than her, his punishment would be set aside.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has long described such measures as a way to deal with existing child marriages, particularly religious unions where the husband was later prosecuted because the bride was under the legal age. Opponents saw it the other way round. In their view, it would tell men that marrying a girl is a way out of prison, and tell families that marriage is the "solution" to abuse.
It is worth being precise. The proposal was not a rule obliging every survivor to marry. It was a sentencing loophole. But campaigners pointed out that girls rarely choose such marriages freely, and that pressure from relatives, shame and money can make "consent" meaningless when the bride is a child.
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The 2016 bill that came first
The 2020 plan was a second attempt. In November 2016 the government brought a bill that would have deferred sentencing for sexual assault committed "without force" where the man and the girl had married. The government said it was a one-off step to help families whose fathers had been jailed after marrying under-18s with the consent of both families. Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım put the number at around 3,800 cases.
The reaction was immediate. Thousands of people demonstrated in Istanbul and other cities, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) threatened to take the bill to the Constitutional Court, and UN agencies warned it would weaken Turkey's ability to fight sexual abuse and child marriage. On 22 November 2016, the day of the planned final vote, Yıldırım announced the bill was being sent back to committee to seek what he called the "broad consensus the president requested." Al Jazeera described the withdrawal as a rare concession by the ruling party to public pressure.
Turkey had in fact abolished its older marry-your-rapist provision in 2005, as part of reforms linked to its bid to join the European Union. That is why critics saw the 2016 and 2020 plans as a step backwards rather than a minor technical fix.
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Who opposed it and why
In 2020 the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called on the government to drop the measure and promised to fight it in parliament, arguing that it would legitimise statutory rape and child marriage. Women's groups organised online and on the streets, often sharing posts under #MeToo-style hashtags to reach audiences outside Turkey.
International campaigners joined in. Suad Abu-Dayyeh of Equality Now praised Turkish activists and noted that Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine had all removed similar loopholes in recent years. Their argument was simple: a girl's safety cannot depend on whether her abuser is willing to become her husband.
The main objections can be summed up in three points:
- It shifts the burden onto the victim. A girl who refuses marriage may face family pressure for "letting" her abuser go to prison.
- It entrenches child marriage. Turkey's age of consent is 18, and courts permit civil marriage only from 16, yet a 2018 government report estimated that more than 480,000 girls had been married in the previous decade.
- It treats abuse as a family matter. Ideas of honour and shame can push relatives to "fix" a pregnancy or a scandal through marriage instead of reporting a crime.
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Violence against women in Turkey: the wider picture
The proposal landed in a country where gender-based violence is a constant subject of public debate. Surveys commonly cited by the UN and by campaigners suggest that close to four in ten women in Turkey have experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner at some point in their lives. Women's rights groups also keep their own monthly counts of women killed by men, because official figures are often disputed.
Political rhetoric added to the tension. At a women's summit in Istanbul in November 2014, Erdoğan said that men and women cannot be treated equally because it is "against nature", a remark widely reported at the time. In 2021, after the period covered here, Turkey also withdrew from the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women, a decision that led to large protests.
None of this means that most Turkish lawmakers or citizens supported the marriage loophole. The opposite was visible in 2016, when public pressure forced the government to back down. But it explains why activists treated the 2020 revival as a serious threat rather than a passing idea.
A worldwide trend away from these laws
Laws that excuse a rapist who marries his victim were once common in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Over the last few decades most countries have repealed them. Italy scrapped its version in 1981, France in 1994, Egypt in 1999, Morocco in 2014 after the suicide of 16-year-old Amina Filali, and Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia all in 2017. Greece followed in 2018 and Bahrain in 2023.
Those reforms usually came after a single case shocked the public, often a young girl pushed into marriage with the man who assaulted her. The pattern in Turkey looked similar: the loophole was abolished in 2005, and every attempt to bring back a version of it met fierce resistance.
Where things stand and how to help
As far as has been reported, the 2020 proposal did not become law, and Turkey's age of consent remains 18. The debate has not disappeared, though; versions of the "amnesty for married offenders" idea have been floated more than once, so women's organisations continue to watch for it.
If you want to support survivors and girls at risk of child marriage, the most useful steps are practical: back established groups such as Equality Now, Girls Not Brides or local women's shelters, share accurate information rather than exaggerated headlines, and listen to the activists on the ground who know their own legal system best. Clear facts make campaigns harder to dismiss.
Sources: The New Arab: Anger as Turkey lawmakers set to introduce 'marry-your-rapist' bill (January 2020); Al Jazeera: Turkey: Controversial bill on sexual assault withdrawn (22 November 2016); Wikipedia: Marry-your-rapist law. Embedded posts: @metoomanyvoices and @kadinlar_icin_umut on Instagram.
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