As soon as we arrived, we were forced to pass naked through x-ray machines many times. The soldiers hit our fingers while taking our fingerprints. Then they took us to a dark room where we were forced to undress. They poured cold water on us and hit us with hosepipes.” So V.Y. (17) remembers his time in Pozantý prison. He spent four and a half months there when he was 13 years old.

As sexual and physical abuse claims in Pozantý prison were finally exposed and picked up by the media, many similar stories of abuse are being told to the Human Rights Association (IHD).

V.Y. recalls there were 25 of them in a ward fit for 14 and had to call the wardens ‘Sir.’ Sick prisoners did not received medical treatment and political prisoners’ right to social activity and visits were canceled. Those who resisted the wardens were taken out of the ward and they returned with their pants taken off.

V.Y. who was subjected to torture not only in the Pozantý prison but also in the police station and the Tarsus C Type Closed prison has applied to the Human Rights Association (ÝHD) Adana Branch for legal aid.

Families, in the meantime, are not happy with the government plan to transfer young prisoners to Sincan prison in Ankara. “Instead of transferring them to far-away prisons where we will not be able to visit them, they should improve the conditions of the Pozantý prison,” says Abdullah A. whose son C.A. (17) has been jailed for six months.

Mersin Association of Help and Solidarity with Immigrants (Göç-Der) president Selahattin Güvenç commented that it was the government’s policy since the establishment of the Turkish Republic to retain and abuse Kurdish children, referring to the sexual abuse of forcibly adopted girls after the Dersim massacre in 1938.

“This is a government’s policy. The government takes away the children and subject them to harassment and sexual abuse. It took place 74 years ago in soldiers’ homes where girls were forced to go, it is taking place today in prisons,” said Güvenç.