The province of Van in northern Kurdistan has a rapidly growing drug problem. The age of users is constantly decreasing. At the same time, the number of people forced into prostitution is increasing. After Istanbul and Adana, Van now ranks third on the list of cities with the most forced prostitution and drug trafficking. Although AKP Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu visits Van every month, he has not yet issued a statement on the problem. The regime apparently only deals with drug use in western Turkey.  

PARAMILITARIES ACT AS DRUG MULES

Especially since 2020, forced prostitution and drug trafficking have increased rapidly in Van. The pandemic seems to have acted as a catalyst. But who is behind organised crime? The supply chains for drugs are controlled by the regime's paramilitaries, the so-called "village guards". They can bring drugs into the city and districts without any control and distribute them in the region. Some families close to the regime play an important role in drug trafficking and forced prostitution. These families have de facto immunity. According to research, one of these families is the village guard clan Kahraman. The AKP mayor of the district of Çatak, Abdurrahman Şeylan, who is also the head of a village guard force, is also centrally involved in organised crime in the region.

The transport and distribution of drugs is apparently run jointly by the notorious village guards "Black Lightning" from the 90s, the Kahraman family and the village guards of the AKP mayor of Çatak. The drugs are brought to the cities by the village guards and handed over to dealers. There they are sold in bars and in car parks. Drug trafficking and forced prostitution go hand in hand in Van.

The car parks where drugs are trafficked belong to the Kahraman and Şeylan families. More of these car parks belong to so-called "Aghas" and village protectors. Drugs are sold there in broad daylight. At the same time, drugs are sold and prostitution is practised via the internet. For money, telephone numbers of dealers and forced prostitutes are procured. Meetings are then held in certain bars. Due to the spread of forced prostitution, the number of syphilis patients in Van has recently increased by one hundred percent.

FORCED PROSTITUTION ORGANISED BY THE ARMY

While the village guards have the drug trade in their hands, forced prostitution is in the hands of the military. In particular, poor, young, often homeless women are driven into drug addiction and forced into prostitution. Forced prostitution takes place not only on the streets and in bars, but also in so-called massage parlours. These "massage parlours" received their operating licence from the municipality of Ipekyolu, which is under trustee administration. The municipality approves these "massage parlours" without any control. They are also turning into drug outlets. Last summer, one such parlour was raided and it was found that it was run by a police officer and a sergeant.

MIGRANT WOMEN ARE FORCED INTO PROSTITUTION

In particular, the precarious situation of migrant women is exploited to force them into prostitution. The Turkish judiciary seconds this. Most recently, five women who had fled from forced prostitution to the public prosecutor's office were handed over directly to the migration authorities for deportation. The threat of deportation deprives women of the possibility to escape from their precarious situation.

PROSTITUTION AND DRUG TRAFFICKING PART OF COUNTERINSURGENCY REPERTOIRE

Drug trafficking and forced prostitution are part of the Turkish state's counterinsurgency repertoire. Within this framework, a complex of paramilitaries, right-wing extremists, the secret service, the military and the government emerged in the 1990s. Again and again, these connections come to light. For example, Osman Yarbaş, prosecutor general for the southern Turkish province of Adana, turned out to be the head of a drug trafficking gang when he was caught transporting heroin. His network also included police officers.

The links between the regime and organised crime became particularly clear in the Susurluk accident. In November 1996, a traffic accident occurred in the northern Aegean near the town of Susurluk, which brought to light the interconnectedness of the state, organised crime and politics and the existence of a secret counter-guerrilla network: the deep state. In the armoured Mercedes-Benz 600 that crashed into a turning truck were Abdullah Çatlı, wanted by Interpol for multiple murders and heroin trafficking, who was also a functionary of the fascist "Idealist Associations", the high-ranking police functionary Hüseyin Kocadağ, former commander of the special forces in Hakkari, as well as the deputy police chief of Amed (Diyarbakir), the parliamentarian and village guard leader Sedat Bucak and the former Miss Turkey, Gonca Us. Of the four inmates, only Bucak, a Kurdish tribal leader from Siverek and member of the then ruling party (DYP) of Tansu Çiller, who had a private army of 20,000 village guards from 90 villages of the clan he controlled against the PKK, survived. For the provision of the village guards, Bucak received state funds amounting to 1.3 million US dollars per month. The mafia killer, Abdullah Çatlı, had gun licences, a diplomatic passport and a police ID card issued by the then Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar. Seven high-tech firearms with silencers were seized in Bucak's Benz limousine, as well as cocaine.