The story of A.A., who was sexually abused by his father from the age of eight to seventeen, neglected by his family and surroundings despite revealing his childhood experiences, and who we know through his six-year struggle for justice in the press.
How many interviews has it been A…?
I’m not counting anymore. I think it’s ten…
You’ve done a lot of interviews. I can imagine that your interviews for justice have been disappointing and hopeless after a while. I’m going to try to look at what you’re going through in a slightly different way. I want to talk aboutthe boy who disappeared in the media behind the story. What did that boy go through, how did he feel? How does he live and feel today?
First, I want to ask you what kind of home and family you grew up in?
My mother was a housewife, my father a worker. My father worked at the factory. My dad’s a middle school graduate, my mom’s an elementary school graduate. My father is not very low in education in the environment he is in. My father and mother had an arranged marriage.
My grandmother didn’t live with us, but she was always in our lives. She lost her husband at a very early age. She was widowed with four children. Two girls, two boys. My father was 12 when his father passed away.
For my grandmother, boys were always at the forefront. No matter what mistakes the men made, they were covered up, not spread. And when my father cheated on my mother with his uncle’s daughter, they covered it up.
I was closer to my grandmother in the family. Because it was my grandmother who protected me.. The one who hugged me … We had never seen anything like that from my mother. Neither my brother, nor I… We’ve always been distant. At home, both my brother and I were seen as a burden. Financially, the children were just a burden.
The only feeling I had for my father was fear. He was very ill-tempered. He used to beat my mother. He used to kill animals… He used to grab the rifle and go out on the balcony. For what? Dogs attacked people who go to prayers in the morning and children who go to school. He was physically abusing us kids, too. . So, constant violence against the weak… We had no love for my father, and he had none for us… He was very instable. One day he was saying, “Just study, I’ll even sell my jacket and make you go to school.” The next day he was like, “Are you going to go to school and become a whore?” …
How did the abuses start? Do you remember that?
The first time that I remember?… I remember the one when I was eight, but before that, there are thing my aunts told.… We used to go to our village in the summer. My parents were also farmers. In the village houses, everyone used to sleep in the same room. We were all in the same room that night. My parents, my aunts, my grandmother.… My aunt says that when everyone went to bed, my father cuddled me and my mum. We want to sleep, and he won’t listen to us, even though we tell him to be quiet. He used to kiss me hard, tickle me and stuff. He loved me viciously.. I’m a baby, then.. My aunts felt there was something strange about those touches.
My father, they say, was weird when he was a teenager.. For example, they told me something my father did when he was 12. It was a winter’s day, and grandma put my dad next to her to sleep in case he could get cold. While grandma was sleeping at night, my father started touching my grandmother’s breasts.. My grandmother woke up and beat him. She never let him sleep next to her again.. Grandma says “I couldn’t put it in then.” She said “We used to put money in our underwear sometimes, I thought he was looking for money.” She didn’t want to admit it. Even though she knows what I’ve been through, my grandmother doesn’t want to admit that she was abused. It makes her relieved to think my dad was looking for money back then. But in fact, everyone knows the truth.
The first abuse I remember of my father was… We were in the village again. It was school time. They wouldn’t let me fall short on my education, but if there was work to do in the village, the priority was the job. That weekend, the work in the village wasn’t finished.. My father came to the village on Sunday evening. When my father came to the village, I was afraid.. We’re always afraid of my father.. The work is not over, why is dad here? My father couldn’t have come to give us good news, or because he missed us.. My father said, “There’s school tomorrow, the child shouldn’t fall behind at school. I’m here to take her away. ” I was so surprised that my dad wanted me not to fall behind in school.. Something I had never heard of or encountered. Mom said okay. He took me home.
I slept with my dad that night. We slept in the same bed. In the bed on the floor … When I woke up at night for the bathroom, I realized that my bottom clothes were all pulled down to my knee.. I couldn’t understand what happened. I checked my clothes, had I just pee? I wasn’t a kid who wet the bed… I checked, the bed was dry. I wonder if I peed and fell asleep while changing.… Anyway, I went to the bathroom. I’m still thinking how my clothes got off. My dad’s sleeping next to me. On the one hand, I’m ashamed. Did my dad see any part of me? I finally thought that I must have got up for the bathroom, slept back without going to the bathroom, not pulling my clothes up.. I didn’t make much sense that day. But as the abuse continued, I knew what had happened that day.
He came every time I was sleeping. He was stroking my private parts by sticking his hand under my clothes. He was making strange noises while doing that. After you reach a certain age, you understand what those voices are…
How did you feel at that time, A…? Do you remember that?
Fear… We were so scared of my father. My brother and I. I remember my heart pounding with fear when my father came to me at night.. I remember trying to slow my heart beating down… I was trying to slow it down while my father was abusing me in case my father realized I was awake from the beating of my heart and beat me…
It is still a wound for me to remember trying to suppress the beating of my heart…
Have you thought about asking anyone for help?
I didn’t think about it in the elementary school. Am I imagining things? Am I dreaming? Are they real? I wasn’t sure.. In our family environment, sexual conversations, jokes, idioms were never censored in front of children. People were very relaxed. Constant sneaky laughter… There was a lot of talk about sexuality, but it was not for the children’s understanding. That’s why you can’t make sense of what you are experiencing.
And even if you suspect that what’s done to you is bad, you don’t want to accept it.. You want to have a family like everybody else, you want a father like everybody else.… You say, “Maybe I’m dreaming, or maybe he has no bad intentions.” Why would he do that?… Of course, I was in fifth grade until I accepted it. I was 11 or 12. That’s when I first told my mom.
I didn’t know the concept of sexual abuse back then. I was surprised to hear that, too. It had a name and it was a crime… My depiction was that “My father comes at night and touches my untouchable parts.” That’s how I told my mother. My mother said, “He’s your father, that’s impossible.” and she didn’t believe me. She said, “I’ll talk to him anyway.”
When my father found out I told my mother, he was too harsh on me. He said, “What did you tell your mother?” My mother was there at the time. I remember that scene very well. My parents are in the same seat, and I’m in front of them. My mother was with him. She didn’t come and sit next to me, she didn’t hug me. It was a message.. When my father asked, “What did you tell your mother?”, when you see the person you’re asking for help sitting next to the person who hurt you; you can’t say, “That’s what I said.”
My father said, “Do you hear what’s coming out of your mouth? I didn’t fall as far as you.” I didn’t make sense of it that day. I still can’t make sense of it.… Here’s how I interpreted it. According to my father, I’m trying to seduce my father, but I’m not the type he would to look at.
And he turned to my mom and said, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s out of his mind. Is that what I fall for when you are here?” … That’s when I realized my mother liked what my father said. I never forget…
Then I told my mom a few more times. She scolded me, saying, “He says he didn’t do it, just close it.” Then I told my aunt. My aunt was mad at my mother. She said, “Let’s tell my brothers.” My mother hushed my aunt saying, “No, there’s no such thing. If his father ever hears about it again, he’s going to kill us all.” I think my mother may have lied there, too. My mother also had a habit of lying…
After that, I told grandma. She didn’t want to believe me either. She believed in me when she was with me, and she believed in my father when she was with him.. I think she knew she could silence my by staying close to me. my grandmother was the only one who was friendly with me.. But he didn’t want his son’s filth exposed either.
Then we had a Turkish teacher in middle school, and I told her.. When I heard what I said, his eyes opened up like a fortune stone. For the first time in my life, I realized that what I was going through wasn’t normal, that it was a big deal. No matter who I told at home, I didn’t see any reaction or surprise. My teacher said, “How could something like this happen? Does your mother know about this?” I said, “Yes, but she doesn’t believe me..” Then he passed it on to the principal afterwards. I was in the first year of the middle school back then. They called me into the principal’s office.
The principle said: “Tell me again what you told your teacher.”
So in this process, tell your mother, tell your grandmother, tell your aunt, tell your teacher…
“Sir, I already told it.”
“Okay. I want to hear it from you.”
The principle was a man. I had a hard time telling him. I had always told women about this. I couldn’t speak properly. After that, the principle said to me,
“What your father’s done is a crime. If we report this, your father will be punished… How much can your mother take care of and raise you? Your mother can marry someone else. We don’t know how the person she is married to will treat you. Then they’ll give you to the orphanage. Your brother’s a boy. And in the orphanage, they will separate you from your brother… The situation of the dormitories is not very bright either. I can’t say let’s report this… If you want, I can hire two men and have them beat your father.. But by nightfall, you will go back to that house.. It’ll make you suffer for it. You’re so embarrassed and anxious while telling me all this. Now how are you going to tell the policemen about this? “
I didn’t answer. I didn’t say whether we should report or not.. And when I left the room, he said, “You can visit me anytime.” I didn’t visit him again. Will you see him again after that conversation?… That door was closed.… And then the principal never asked me anything again, nor my teacher…
I went to a health vocational high school. I told a teacher whom I saw a bit close to me what I’d been through, again. She was really caring. She even told the other teachers… And there, again the principle;
“Do you have a relative you can stay with?”
“No.”
“What do you plan to do after you’re 18 when you leave the orphanage?”
(I’m not thinking aboutthat right now. I’m worried about getting out of that house right away.)
“I work at a private hospital; I will get a palce.” I said.
“It’s not that simple. How many graduate nurse students do I have? They are still waiting for a designation. Now you have courage. You’re a teenager, your blood flows in your veins, it won’t just happen by saying you’re going to be designated, I’m afraid.”
I mean, whichever way I show him, he closes the door.. I find out a lot later from my teacher; for many times she had gone to the principal, asking, “What are we doing about this situation, sir, are we doing anything?” The principal always covered it up by saying, “You take care of your lessons, I’m taking care of it.”
How did the abuse end A…?
After meeting with the principal, they redirected me to the guidance counselor.. The guidance counselor said, “No father would do such a thing to his child. You could be schizophrenic.” Since we are taking a mental and nervous diseases course in a health vocational high school, I know that schizophrenics take drugs. I asked the counselor, “Counselor, if I’m schizophrenic, should I go to psychiatry? Should I take medication? What am I supposed to do?” He did not give a clear answer. Then he added. “No father would do that to his own daughter. But if he does, don’t shut up. He keeps doing it because you’re silent.” I asked: “What shall I do?”. “Put a knife under your pillow. Put a jug on your bedside, keep a glass next to you. Hit the wall, break it. Shout and react. As long as you remain silent, this will continue and will not end.”
only sentence that teacher said worked: “As long as you keep quiet, it will continue.” I combined my own logic with what he said. Without a knife, without a jug… It ended when I screamed. That night, I screamed and shouted. My brother woke up, my mother woke up. He had then admitted his guilt. “I couldn’t be a father. I couldn’t do it!” He fell to my feet, pleading. So that I keep quiet, so that the neighbors do not hear it. He took the rifle with which he shot the dogs and called my mother. He said, “Come shoot me, kill me, I couldn’t be a father.” And my mother replied, “If I kill you, they’ll put me in jail, you in the grave. Who will take care of these children?” He went: “Don’t kill me here at home, let’s go to the mountainside, kill me somewhere else, then kill yourself, too, the children will be scared here.”
When I was seventeen, the abuse ended.
How did you leave the house?
I met my future husband at the end of high school. We dated for a year and a half. My family knew I was dating him. They didn’t want to give give me away at first. They had made me study for four years. They couldn’t give me before eating my salary for a few years first.… There, my grandmother stepped in. I think my grandmother stepped in fearing that if I go away, her son’s filth would be exposed… I left that house getting married at the age of nineteen.
How did you decide to seek psychological support? How did your confrontation begin?
I had a lot of obsessions. I was aware of that myself. I was judging myself and my surroundings very cruelly. I combined my obsessions with my faith. I started to think that we were being harassed because we dressed openly. That was why I had to cover myself to not provoke anyone. I must have kept myself covered, not to be exposed. I was also judging my surroundings. Why did you dress like that?… Why did you do that? …
After I had my second daughter, my obsession with cleaning and order began.
I started having problems with my husband. I was worried about him hugging and kissing our children.
The first psychologist I went to said, “This may happen in any marriage. You don’t have to come here too often for that.” Then I found another psychologist. I learned from my psychologist that I could go to the court. For the first time, someone took what I said seriously: “Even if you do not file this case, I have to report it as a professional ethic.” “If I report it, he probably won’t be arrested, but if you report it, it will be very different,” he said. He told me that the blame was not mine, that as long as I didn’t have the courage to speak, as long as I felt the blame in myself, and as long as I didn’t see the understanding of a just world, he would be useful to me to a certain extent.
When the woman said, “Even if you don’t report it, I will.” meaning ‘even if you act passively, I won’t be passive…’ Her power, that power, passed onto me. I filed the lawsuit in May 2016. My father was arrested. He was imprisoned for six months. During the FETÖ events, the prosecutor changed. For a while, the file was left without a prosecutor. we waited nearly two years for the indictment to be prepared. Although the evidence, the witnesses, proved that he had committed the crime, they released him saying, “We cannot deprive a person of his liberty any longer when he has not been convicted.” During this process, I wrote to CIMER (Presidency Information Center) many times. Each time, the same reply came: “The justice system is independent, we cannot intervene.” Then I reached out to a journalist to do an interview. My post was published on Saturday. They called me from the Courthouse on Sunday saying “Your application has been examined and the court date will be given within the next week.”
When I was twelve years old, I learned that when a key was locked, it would not fall even if they pushed the key in the hole. I found it out by experience because I was afraid that when I locked my door, he would come and open it. Just as they forced me to learn this at that age, they obliged me to learn it in the path to justice. In other words, I was learning how justice would be done in the same way: by experimenting.
Of course, everyone who was a witness became a defendant in court. Because they did not take what they knew to the court. During the trial, everyone gave false testimony except my high school teacher. My family, my relatives, people at my school… None of them received any punishment. My father was sentenced, but he is now free. The case is currently at the Supreme Court stage.
As far as I know, the case you have filed is a unique case in Turkey. In terms of being prosecuted after a long period of time has passed after the sexual abuse. Can you tell us about your experience during the litigation process?
Firstly, to be silent is very debilitating. After filing the lawsuit,I saw that there were people who understood me and that I was right… This really relaxes you. Even if it is the other party who committed the crime, you are no longer afraid of being judged by society as if you had committed that crime. Only one of my high school friends knew what I was going through, and our high school group all found out after the case was published in the press. I was very impressed when they said, “We wish we had known about it; if necessary, we would have gone on strike in front of the courthouse.” I felt I wasn’t alone.
When I look back at my children, I think that I am glad to have filed the lawsuit. I sent my child to the sect nursery when I had psychological problems. If only I had my current mind back then… What was I thinking? My daughter and I are making jokes at home one day, playing games, laughing and so on… In a happy moment; “Laughter comes from the devil. Laughter is a sin!” my child told me. They taught it in the nursery. One day my daughter and I are in the market again. A woman passes by in front of us. “Mommy, her dress is very revealing, isn’t it a big sin?” Those two moments… I stopped sending the child to the kindergarten. Now what is my child fighting for at school? When her physical education teacher says “Boys will dress first in, then girls,” she says; “No. There is equality between men and women. They will dress up first one week, next week we will. You can’t treat girls like second-class citizens!” I’m very happy about that. At least with my struggle, I have started to raise my children with more awareness.
The litigation process taught me something else. My therapist said of the trial, “It doesn’t matter if it is a family member or a teacher. There’s only one question you have to ask; yes, the past is in the past, so where are you in this case today? Are you with me or not? A clear and unequivocal answer. This is the only way can you understand the people who will stay in your life from now on. Yes, no one can bring back the past. Maybe they made a mistake… That doesn’t change the outcome, you had to live in that house for years. But at least in this process, are they taking a step to make up for their mistakes or not? It’s very important to you.” And I asked this question to all of them. To my grandmother, to my uncle, to my teachers and to my relatives. Only two of my teachers were able to say, “Even if we get convicted, we are with you.”
How did you decide to write a book?
How did I decide on the book?… It doesn’t end… The news doesn’t stop either… Somehow it doesn’t end. It definitely comes across from somewhere. At one point, he was around a lot on social media; a professor… “Twelve, thirteen years of age is the most fertile period, for a woman to bear children and to marry, all of our mothers are married at that age,” he said.. That professor’s speech got on my nerves a lot. That day I picked up my pen. I wrote twelve pages without knowing what I was writing with that anger… That’s when I decided to write. I was also writing during the psychotherapy period. My psychologist also recommended it. Writing was good for me… It doesn’t end… In other words, what we have to endure, what is done to us never do not end. The story doesn’t end…
When I filed this lawsuit, the abuse was already over. The reason why I decided to file this lawsuit was actually my feeling of motherhood. We are trying to raise children in this society. How will it be possible? This aspect predominated. Life goes on, and we want to make the current life free of garbage… To save our children… And it doesn’t have to happen to your own child… There’s no need to experience that either. I don’t think it ends for someone with a conscience.
If you knew that people would never judge you, that you and your family would not suffer any harm, what would you want to do in a society where everyone would support you?
I wouldn’t cover my name on the news. I wouldn’t feel the need to hide my face. Most people around me already know what I’m going through, I don’t hide it. But my kids… We are in a male-dominated society, I don’t know what they will have to face. I felt such a need just because I cared about my children… I felt such a need because I did not trust our society, I did not trust the point of view of society. Otherwise, I don’t feel the blame anymore. I have no fear of being exposed.
Do you have anything to add?
I love you.
I love you too. I felt like hugging you. To hug with the feeling that there is someone who understands me, that I am not alone… I remember our first encounter. Our inability to hug… Even though we wanted it much… The fact that we cannot hug as we wish because our sense of touch is so damaged…
In every therapy, I say, ‘When this session is over, I will hug you when I leave, I will hug my therapist’, but I can’t hug her/him… ‘I don’t have the ability to touch, I want this very much.’ I told. I made that conversation, and the session was over. I turned around to leave the room. My psychologist: “Haven’t you forgotten something?” “I didn’t forget it. I haven’t forgotten, but I can’t do it.” “I’m waiting.” she/he said. That gesture made me very happy.
Maybe that’s how we hug each other A…., not like everyone, but still… Maybe that’s how our hugs will be.
As Neşet Ertaş said, “There is a path from heart to heart, it’s an invisible secret to the eye.”
Let’s end it like this…