Turkish children's book slammed for normalizing rape
A children's tale in Turkey was slammed by a columnist for using storylines and expressions that normalize rape and violence. A child psychologist noted that reading this content would normalize violence in children's minds.
Duvar English
A daily Hürriyet columnist slammed a children's book named "Gül ve Düşün" ("Think and Laugh" in Turkish) that talks about rape in a manner that "normalizes" and justifies it.
Columnist Fulya Soybaş noted in her Aug. 28-dated column that especially one of the expressions in the book could be detrimental to children as it said that rape would be a good way to take revenge from a grizzly bear.
Soybaş asked child psychologist Veysi Çeri of his opinion regarding the book. Dr. Çeri said that reading about sexual violence would give children the idea that these were regular and acceptable incidents.
"The child will normalize rape and violent as a result of reading these stories, and will not hesitate to take these actions," Çeri said.
The expert noted that children's books should be monitored ahead of publication.
"It doesn't have to be done by the government; a consortium of experts would be better," the expert said. "I don't care what adults write, but children's books must be filtered."