Lawyer Feyza Altun’s new book “Çocuğun Sesi” (The Voice of the Child), which examines child abuse in all its aspects, is now on the shelves under the İnkılâp Kitabevi imprint. The book offers a comprehensive view through real-life examples, case files and the relevant articles of law.
Every year in Turkey, thousands of children are subjected to sexual abuse. Beyond the cases that are recorded and made visible, there are also truths that remain unseen. Feyza Altun has written for the children who are abused, who try to speak out, but who go “unheard”.
Giving separate examples of each type of abuse, physical, emotional and sexual, and examining how each is addressed in law, Çocuğun Sesi focuses on painful but true life stories.
The book also sets out ways of protecting children from abuse and the education that should be provided to that end. The questions to ask, the precautions to take and the steps to follow when abuse occurs are explained one by one.
In Çocuğun Sesi, in which she also tells her own story with complete sincerity, Feyza Altun offers a guide for parents, teachers, healthcare workers and everyone who cares for a child.
Back cover
Some were raped under the name of marriage at an age when they should have been playing; some were abused for years by their own fathers; some suffered violence. All of them tried in some way to tell of their pain, but no one heard them.
Children never really fell silent. Sometimes they spoke through tears, sometimes through a game, sometimes through a silent scream… But it was hard to accept.
This book was written to give voice to children’s voices. At a time when courthouse corridors echo with tens of thousands of child abuse cases in a single year, it set out so that, for once, someone would listen to their cries.
Çocuğun Sesi is a painful guide, but one as real as life itself, that will give courage to everyone who refuses to let children, our future, be left without a future.
