Cat House, In More Ways Than One

ingilizce links to original Turkish article

(Hürriyet Daily News, 10 October 2018)


                 Meow-ish spoken here.

Three sex workers in the northwestern Turkish 
province of Edirne have filed a criminal complaint 
against the owners of a legal brothel for dismissing 
them for feeding stray cats. 

Demirören News Agency reported on Oct. 9 that the 

three sex workers were feeding more than 30 street

 animals in the apartment inside the brothel complex

 that they rented 10 months ago. They also built a hut

 for stray cats and dogs in the garden of the main 

building of the brothel.

But the three friends’ love for stray animals was 

apparently not shared by some of their colleagues, 

who complained to the owners of the brothel earlier 

this year.

Edirne's USA sister province.

“They fired us and kicked us out of our apartment 

because we were looking after those animals. They 

shot one of our cats, named Kınalı, with a pump-action

 shotgun. He still lives with 11 pellets in his body,” 

Mürvet Taşvur, one of the sex workers, told the agency.

The assailants were only issued fines in the lack of 

effective laws to protect stray animals.

“The people in the brothel and its owners are 

monsters,” Taşvur said, noting that they recently 

filed a criminal complaint at the Edirne Chief 

Prosecutor’s Office.

Adding that she could be able to regularly feed the

 animals that remained in the brothel in company of

 local animal rights’ activists, she said: “We will 

pursue our legal rights till the end.”

Prostitution in officially registered brothels, known 

as “general houses,” is legal in Turkey.

Under health laws dealing with sexually transmitted 

infections, the state’s regulatory agencies issue identity

 cards to sex workers that give them rights to some free

 medical care and other social services.