A new bill proposed by the Turkish parliament will allow those who rape underage children to be pardoned for the crime as long as they marry the victim after the act. The ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP, has provoked outcry after they proposed the bill which would see the pardoning over some 3,000 child rapists. According to the AKP, the bill is intended to benefit men who have had sex with a minor they are in a relationship with, and deal with the complications of child marriage within the country the Telegraph reports. The new bill would be a reversal of a law that was passed over a decade ago in 2005 that criminalized child rape regardless if the victim and the attacker were married or not. The new bill also stipulates that if the marriage does not work out and the two parties agree to a divorce then the rapist would once again be arrested for the crime and continue any deferred sentence. Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag defended the bill saying that it would help in cases where the girl became pregnant by keeping the man around in her life and able to provide economic assistance