A town in Turkey's Kastamonu province called Bademci, introduced a new regulation which requires that a man wishing to marry a woman from that town start to pay for her social security insurance monthly premium before marriage.
The new regulation will be implemented to protect the girls who leave the town at a young age to get married, according to the village's headman Yılmaz Akarsu.
Akarsu said, "Groom candidates will no longer marry women of our town unless they cover their social security insurance." This regulation will be a pioneer, and set a precedence for other places in Turkey which will adopt it in the coming years, according to Akarsu.
The new regulation has already kicked off with the Hüseyin Atlı - Müzeyyen Yıldız couple who recently got married, Akarsu stated.
"The bride has now been insured with social security coverage and has welfare benefits," Akarsu said. "We were the ones who paid her first insurance premium (as a wedding present)."
The insurance premium payments are paid in Turkey on a monthly basis to the Social Security Institution (SGK). The system offers personal protective health services as well as an old age pension to those who pay their premiums for a certain period of time. The old age payment is available in pension or lump-sum form.