IN PAST DECADE, SOME 250,000 CHILDREN SEXUALLY ABUSED

At least 250,000 minors have been sexually abused in Turkey over the past decade, with 7,000 raped in 2010 alone, daily Milliyet reports quoting a survey conducted by a prominent Turkish researcher. The research by Tuncer Gunay also revealed that some 350,000 to 400,000 children are thought to have been sexually abused over the past 20 years by first-degree relatives or other close kin. Of these incidents, just 600 were referred to the country's courts.

Mistreatment of minors seems to have been harshest on Turkey's streets, with 30,000 of 50,000 homeless children reportedly having been either raped or sexually abused. Last year, some 4,000 street children were sentenced and sent to correctional facilities, where 250 juveniles over the past five years have reported being raped by their peers or older inmates, Gunay said in his research. Seventy-five percent of all street children have some kind of police record for committing crimes such as theft, extortion, causing personal injury or rape. 

The well-known researcher, who is working on a book to be published this year about child sexual abuse in Turkey, compiled his survey using various official studies and reports, including data obtained from the Police Department Headquarters, figures disclosed in various panel discussions, newspaper archives and reports from the Social Services and Child Protection Agency, or SHCEK. Figures extracted from a report prepared by the Police Department Headquarters revealed that women were the victims in the majority - 71% - of all cases of sexual assault in 2010. Of the rest, 17% were children and 12% were men. The survey by Gunay also showed that access to 23,000 porn sites, of which 15,000 dealt in child pornography, was barred in 2010 by units responsible for information technologies and telecommunications monitoring. More information, click at http://adf.ly/3jdj2