Single men protest in Turkish village, demand to get married

Men from a southern Turkish village took to the streets to protest local women’s refusal to accept them as potential grooms, leaving them unmarried for nine years, CNN Turk reported on Tuesday.

Uzumlu’s women refusal to marry the local men is because they don’t want to live in the village, prompting the men to protest.

The men carried banners urging women to accept to live in the small village instead of moving to big cities.

To show their eagerness to marry, one of the men’s banners sought help of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when it conveyed the promise that these men will impregnate their future spouses with five children.

Erdogan previously urged Turks to give birth to at least three children.

The village’s mayor Mustafa Bashbilan said out of the village’s population of 233, there are 25 single men, whose ages range between 25 and 45.

Bashbilan said most of the town’s females have preferred to move into cities while the men stayed behind to take care of their grandfathers’ lands.

He also said that the town does not suffer from financial problems but the young men’s inability to marry has caused a huge problem.

Bashbilan reminisced that the last wedding in the village was nine years ago when the town’s population was 400.