A total of 1,008 children were listed as victims in sexual abuse cases in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şanlıurfa over the past two years, according to a report by the Şanlıurfa Bar Association.
The bar association’s “Children’s Rights Violations Monitoring Report (2024–2025)” covers the period from January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2025, and is based on cases in which a court-appointed defense lawyer was assigned to child victims. The report said 134 of the children were not Turkish citizens.
According to the report, 553 case files were still under investigation, while 220 had advanced to prosecution. Another 224 ended with decisions of non-prosecution due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
The bar association said long delays in investigations and a high number of non-prosecution decisions can increase the risk of impunity and deepen trauma for children who are forced to relive abuse through repeated legal procedures.
It also warned that the figures likely reflect only a portion of the real scale of abuse, citing social pressure, power dynamics within families and communities and fear among children as factors that can prevent cases from being reported.
Most victims were girls, pointing to early marriage, gender inequality, poverty and weak protective mechanisms as risk factors. It said abuse against boys may remain largely hidden because of stigma and social pressure.
The report said it had reviewed 23 decisions of non-prosecution in child sexual abuse cases and found that prosecutors most often closed files because a complaint was withdrawn, because they said there was not enough evidence to proceed or because they argued that the suspect could not legally be prosecuted or punished under Turkish law. The bar association stated that these decisions can leave children without effective protection and increase the risk of impunity.
