A report released by Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy revealed that the disintegration of the society’s common value system undermines the national integrity and coherence among the individuals.
According to a news published by Habertürk daily, Lale Karabıyık, CHP Deputy Chairman for Social Politics, has presented a report titled “Social Breakdown in Turkey” on the impact of social problems. The report states that in Turkey, the use of antidepressants increased by 25,6 percent between the years of 2011 and 2016. While 14,238,000 boxes of antidepressants were sold in 2003; 37,351,187 boxes were consumed in 2012 and 33,638,916 boxes of antidepressants were consumed in the first 9 months of 2016.
Substance dependency in Turkey has also increased 17 times in 6 years since 2011. In the studies published by the Turkish Ministry of Health regarding drug use, the rate of at least giving a try for once any illegal addictive substance in the 15-64 age group was 2,7 percent, 26,7 percent of students were addicted to tobacco products and 19,4 percent of them were addicted to alcoholic beverages. And at least using at least once any narcotic drug was calculated at 1,5 percent.
According to the suicide statistics published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK); the number of suicides resulting in death in 2015 increased by 1,3 percent; 3 thousand 211 compared to the previous year. While 72,7 percent of those who committed suicide were male, 27,3 percent were female.
The rate of family income in comparison to debt was 4,7 percent in December 2002, but it has reached 57 percent by December 2016. In December 2002, while the amount of the protested bill was TL 0,8 billion, it increased to TL 12,3 billion in December 2016. The borrowing from banks increased from TL 6,6 billion to TL 419,6 billion, and the debt of farmers increased from TL 5,1 billion to TL 73,4 billion. According to the statistics by TÜİK, divorces, prostitution, manslaughter, and children’s sexual abuse increased by 37 percent, 790 percent, 261 percent and 434 percent respectively.
It is also emphasized that the rate of drug addiction increased by 678 percent, sexual harassment increased by 449 percent, and violence targeting women increased by 1,400 percent.
Between 2011 and 2016, there has been 232,313 ‘child brides.’ Since 2002, 440,000 children under 18 years of age gave birth in Turkey. 69,9 percent of the child brides (16-17 age group) were married to men at least 6 years older than them.
According to Turkish Police’s statistics, 250,000 children were abused in the last 10 years. The case file for juvenile crimes has increased by 200 percent over the past 10 years, while 62,000 cases occurred in 2006, this figure has reached 117,739 in 2016. The number of children eloped in 2015 is 3,010. 1,196 of these children were males and 1,814 were females. While the number of children who escaped from home in 2016 was 2,686, 880 of them were boys and 1,806 of them were girls.
