A woman named Ayşe Karaduman was arrested four months ago and sentenced to prison for being linked to the Gülen movement. However, the prison authorities were unable to provide the necessary care for her 13-month-old baby, so she had to give him up to her relatives.
Karaduman is a homemaker who had to give up breastfeeding her baby and hand him over to his father and relatives about 10 days ago. The little boy had just started taking his first steps, but the hard prison floors were too much for him. He kept falling and hurting himself, so the mother decided it was best for him to be with his family.
In a letter to her family, Karaduman said, “I desperately miss my little Murat. But I could no longer bear him falling and bruising himself on the prison floor. He should have learned how to crawl and walk in his own warm home, on soft carpets.”
Karaduman said she was still lactating, but she disposed of her breastmilk in the prison sink. The Gülen movement is a faith-based group that is accused by the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of masterminding a failed coup in 2016. The movement denies any involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Karaduman’s arrest was a violation of the Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures, which states that the execution of the prison sentence should be delayed for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last 18 months. Despite this law, several women with infants have had to turn their babies over to relatives due to poor prison conditions.
Some women, like Karaduman, were still lactating and under great psychological stress from the separation. But incarcerated mothers say they feel compelled to give up their babies because prisons do not meet the physical and developmental needs of young children.
Previous reports have also highlighted that Turkish prisons do not accommodate the needs of children and infants. Most prisons do not provide basic amenities such as crayons, toys, or carpets for crawling babies. Many children do not have their own beds and must share their mothers’ food.
