Research Information System
Girlhood Studies, vol.18, no.3, pp.32-47, 2025 (ESCI, Scopus)
The Turkish legal system stipulates that people under 18 are children and prohibits what is called child marriage. For decades the Turkish state has been striving to eliminate early marriages, whether forced or voluntary. Mainstream media labels underage girls who marry unofficially as child brides, a term that evokes negative associations including child abuse, backwardness, and pathologized sexuality. A group of underage girls, however, claim to have married of their own volition and call themselves Early Marriage Sufferers since they suffer because of the existing legislation regulating the age of marriage. I explore the topography of early marriages in Turkey through the media coverage of this movement in relation to the role it plays in the political antagonisms between secularists and conservationists in this society.