ISTANBUL, May 24 — In a bid to tackle Turkey’s falling birthrate, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on yesterday announced the “decade of the family”, and again lashed out at the LGBT community as “deviant”.
“The period between 2026 and 2035 has been identified as the decade of family and population,” said Erdogan in opening the International Family Forum in Istanbul.
“Our country is facing a great danger: Turkey’s birthrate for the first time in our history dropped to 1.48” children per woman, he said, citing figures from the Turkish statistical institute (TUIK).
“This is a disaster, this figure is way below the critical threshold of 2.1,” he said.
“What we are facing right now is not only a statistic, but a warning pushing us to act.
That’s why in recent years, we have taken important steps to encourage... all families to have at least three children.”.
He also used his speech to lash out at the LGBT community, which had been a repeated target of his 2023 election campaign. »
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