Charity boss arrest in BBC sex-for-aid investigation ‘gives women strength’

A Turkish charity owner at the centre of sexual abuse allegations, brought to light by a BBC investigation, has been arrested.

BBC News Turkish revealed accusations that Sadettin Karagoz sexually exploited vulnerable women, promising them aid in return for sex. He denies all the allegations.

Mr Karagoz set up his charity in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, in 2014. Syrian refugees desperate for help said at first he seemed like “an angel”.

One of them, Madina, fled the Syrian civil war in 2016 and said that two years later, one of her children became critically ill and her husband abandoned her. Her name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

Left to care for three children alone, she went to Sadettin Karagoz’s organisation, which translates as the Hope Charity Store. It gathers donations for refugees such as nappies, pasta, milk and clothes.

“He told me: ‘When you have nowhere to go, come to me and I will look after you,” she says.

But when she did, Madina says he changed. She describes how Mr Karagoz told her to go with him to an area in the office behind a curtain to get some supplies.

“He grabbed me,” she says. “He started kissing me… I told him to get away from me. If I hadn’t yelled, he would have tried to rape me.”

Madina describes how she escaped from the building but Mr Karagoz later went to her home.

“I didn’t open the door because I was terrified,” she says, explaining that he threatened to have her sent back to Syria.

Scared of repercussions, Madina says she never went to the police and did not tell anyone else what had happened.

Mr Karagoz, a retired bank worker, denies the allegations and has told the BBC that his organisation has helped more than 37,000 people.

He says that the aid distribution area in the charity is small, crowded and monitored by CCTV so he could not have been alone with any woman.

Over the years, his charity has gained widespread recognition and won a local newspaper award in 2020. It has been featured on national TV, and he says it has attracted support from national and international organisations. In March this year he changed its Turkish name to My Home-meal Association.

In all, three women, including Madina, told the BBC that Mr Karagoz had sexually assaulted and harassed them.

Seven other people, including two former employees of his charity, say they either witnessed or heard first-hand testimony of him committing acts of sexual abuse between 2016 and 2024.

According to 27-year-old Syrian refugee Nada, he said he would only give her aid if she went to an empty flat with him. “If you don’t, I won’t give you anything,” she says Mr Karagoz told her. Again, her name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

She was with her sister-in-law and says they stormed out. But desperate to provide for her family, she explains she didn’t know where else to turn, so went back.

On one occasion, Nada says Mr Karagoz took her behind a curtain to get nappies for her son where “he tried to touch my breasts”.

Another time, she says that “he came from behind and grabbed my hand… he forced me to touch his genitals”.

Afraid of the stigma attached to sexual abuse and scared she would be blamed, Nada says she didn’t feel she could tell anyone, even her husband.

The third woman who told the BBC that Mr Karagoz had assaulted her is Batoul, who has since moved to Germany.

A single mother, she too says she went to him for help. “When I turned away to pick up the aid, he put his hands on my backside,” she explains. “I left the aid and walked out of the shop.”

These testimonies were not the first to surface against Mr Karagoz.

In 2019 and 2025 he was accused of sexual harassment and assault, but on both occasions prosecutors decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him. Police said neither victims nor witnesses were willing to come forward to make formal complaints.

Some women told us they were afraid testifying could lead to them being harassed or deported.

But after the BBC investigation, it is understood two other women came forward to report Mr Karagoz, and their testimony resulted in him being charged with sexual abuse. He is now in jail awaiting trial.

Batoul says she is “truly happy” he has been arrested, “for myself and for all the women who have suffered in silence and couldn’t speak out because of fear”.

She adds that she hopes it “gives courage and strength to all women who are being exploited in any way”.

Before he was arrested, we put the allegations made by Madina, Nada, Batoul and charity workers to Mr Karagoz.

He denied all the accusations and claimed if they were true, more women would have come forward.

“Three people, five people, 10 people [could complain]. Such things occur,” he said. “If you said 100, 200 [had accused me], then fine, then you could believe I actually did those things.”

He also said he had diabetes and high blood pressure and showed us a medical report with details of an operation in 2016 to remove his left testicle. This meant he was not able to perform any sexual activity, he said.

However a professor of urology and specialist in men’s sexual health, Ates Kadioglu, told the BBC that having one testicle removed “doesn’t affect someone’s sex life”.

We put this to Mr Karagoz who insisted that sexual activity was “not possible for me”.

We also put it to him that sexual assault may be motivated by a desire for power and control. He responded by saying: “I personally don’t have such an urge.”

“All we did was good deeds and this is what we get in return.”

Sadettin Karagoz said women who accused him of assault in the past did so because he had reported them to the police for being involved in illegal activities.

All the women we spoke to denied they or their relatives were involved with crime and the BBC has seen no evidence to suggest that they were.