Mayor, girls fight back against 'tradition' of abducting minors for marriage

Underage girls have been abducted and forced into marriage, while their families have been paid hush money to maintain their silence about the activity in the western province of İzmir's Kiraz district, according to allegations by villagers. Now, however, the town's first woman mayor is attempting to fight back against the tradition, as are some of the liberated kidnapping victims.

"We've seen that abducting girls is happening often in the Sırımlı-Olgunlar line. Most of them are done contractually, but there is a victimization of girls. The mothers and father of these girls got married the same way. If someone is to put an end to this situation, that's me," Mayor Saliha Özçınar of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) recently told daily Hürriyet, adding that the perception of "she loved and left or he loved and abducted" should be broken. 

According to villagers in the villages of Sırımlı and Olgunlar, it is a tradition to abduct girls between the ages of 12 and 21 and then pay the families hush money.

According to the villagers, the hush money increases as the age of the abducted girl decreases. Families receive up to 20,000 Turkish Liras when their 15-year-old is abducted, 25,000 liras when their 14-year-old child is abducted, 30,000 liras when their 13-year-old girl is abducted and up to 40,000 liras when their 12-year-old-child is abducted. 

Most of the girls give birth to two or three girls before turning 18. The abductions are generally conducted on Fridays out of the belief that authorities will not take any action on weekends. 

One of the abducted girls, identified only as Ş.A., 15, was saved in a police operation following after 85 days in captivity after her family rebelled against the tradition....