Evaluation of sexual assaults in Turkey

Sex crimes remain an important problem all over the world. Very few studies about sexual offenses in Turkey have been published. Sexual assault is a serious social problem that constitutes serious health conditions affecting the lives of involved individuals. In this study, we aimed to investigate socio-demographic features of victims, assailant-victim relationships and sexual assault findings.

A total of 324 sexual assault victims presenting to and examined in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University Medical Faculty, between January 2007 and December 2010 were included in the study. The victims completed a survey at face to face interviews.

Of 324 victims, 268 (82.7%) were female and 56 (17.3%) were male. The mean age of the victims was 16.78 ± 7.16 years. In all cases, types of the assaults were as following; vaginal penetration in 160 (49.4%), anal penetration in 117 (36.1%), oral penetration with penis in 7 (2.2%) and in the form of kissing, fondling, touching the sex organ and rubbing the sex organ in 60 (18.5%) cases. Of all the assaults, 149 (46%) were found to take place in the assailants' homes and 49 (15.1%) in the victims' homes. Of 139 cases, 85 (26.3%) had genital injury alone and 54 (16.7%) had anal injury.

On the contrary to the previous studies, this study revealed that sexual assaults occurred mostly in the assailants' homes and that the incidence of anal trauma was higher.