Erdogan decries birth rate decline, lambasts Eurovision
The serious decline in birth rates in Turkey is an “existential threat” and a “disaster” for the country, its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said.
Last week, Turkey’s State Statistical Institute announced that the country’s birth rate had decreased for the eighth consecutive year in 2023, dropping to 1.51 children per woman.
The data highlighted that a woman gave approximately 2.38 live births during her reproductive life in 2001, and 1.51 in 2023. The highest total fertility rate was in the southeastern Sanliurfa province with 3.27 children, while the lowest was in the northern Bartin province with 1.13. The mean age of the mothers giving birth rose to 29.2 in 2023, while it was 29 for giving birth to the first child.
The Turkish leader has long called on families to have at least three children.
In a speech following a Cabinet meeting, Erdogan took a swipe at the Eurovision Song Contest, accusing the annual event of allegedly encouraging “gender neutralization” and threatening the traditional family.
He described participants at the contest as the “Trojan horses of social corruption” and said his government was right to keep Turkey out of the pan-European pop competition since 2012.
It was an apparent reference to Swiss singer Nemo who won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest earlier this month with “The Code,” an operatic pop-rap ode to the singer’s journey toward embracing a nongender identity. The 24-year-old singer became the first nonbinary winner of the contest that has long been embraced as a safe haven by the LGBTQ community.
“At such events, it has become impossible to meet a normal person,” claimed Erdogan, whose ruling Justice and Development Party finds its roots in Turkey’s Islamic movement and whose government has grown less tolerant of LGBTQ rights in recent years.
“We understand better how we made the right decision by keeping Turkey out of this disgraceful competition for the past 12 years,” he said. [AP, Anadolu]
