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They have been implicated in attacks on Kurdish Internally Displaced Persons returning to their villages after forced evacuation. Around 50,000 to 90,000 village guards are still present in southeastern Turkey , also referred to as Turkish Kurdistan . Members of the village guards are frequently targeted for attack by PKK guerillas as they are seen as Traitor s. Accepting to become a village guard is a largely voluntary process, although there are exceptions (see below). A village guard can expect to be paid up to $200 (~130 € ) per month. HUMAN RIGHTS Whilst by no means officially endorsed by the Turkish Government, some village guards are reported to have been involved in " Disappearances ", extrajudicial Execution s and Torture , sometimes dressing themselves up as PKK Guerrillas in False Flag attacks. A report by the Turkish Parliament in 1995 confirmed that village guards have been involved in not just these but a wide range of illegal activities, including killing, Extortion , Drug Smuggling . Human Rights Watch has stated that for years that have received reports of "violations by village guards—murders, rapes, robberies, house destruction, and illegal property occupation, among others". They add however that not all of these reports have been confirmed first hand. People who refused to join the village guards have had their homes burned, or have been forced to leave and their homes and property seized. They have endured Sexual Assault and humiliation by the Turkish security forces. There have been some attempts by the Turkish authorities to compensate people who have lost property in this way. A member of the Turkish Parliament , Unal Erkan and former governor of some areas of south-eastern Turkey states that, "village guards often operated outside the control of the gendarmerie, and that many villagers faced pressure to enter the system". The Turkish Interior Ministry approximates that 296 murders have been committed by village guards in the time between 1985 and 1996 . The journalist Gottfried Stein relates former lieutenant in the Turkish Army Yener Soylu as describing the process of persuading some villagers to join the village guards:
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