Turkey offers cash rewards for marrying early
The Justice and Development Party government is offering incentives to encourage university students to get married before graduation and to have more than three children.
The latest promises of financial incentives by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu aim at getting young people to marry before graduating from university and produce at least three offspring.
The objective appears to expunge women from economic and social life, and confine them to the home by offering them attractive economic incentives.
The controversial suggestion by Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu that “women should not focus on any career other than the career of motherhood” is one clue to the goal behind the campaign.
The first indication to disconnect women from productivity, cultural life and from being equal members of society was initiated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when last year he addressed the girls of the Service for Youth and Education Foundation of Turkey (TURGEV), an organization managed by his son. Erdogan who was then prime minister told the girls: "Don’t delay your marriage. Decide quickly and marry while you are studying or immediately after graduation — the minute you find your destiny [kismet]. Don’t be too selective. If you are, you won’t achieve it.”
