According to women’s organisations, 73% of the women with protection orders by the state have been killed in Turkey. While violence against women skyrocketed during the AKP rule, it is also significant that 47% of the murders are committed by ex-husbands or husbands in the divorce process.

THE STATE ITSELF COMMITS SEXUAL VIOLENCE

The statistics show that 7427 women were killed between 2002 and 2015. At least 5 women are killed every day, enough to call the situation a gendercide. 617 women, 271 of whom are trans, were killed in the last 10 months in the hands of men.

According to the 2015 report of the Law Office Against Sexual Harrasment and Rape in Custody, state security forces are the perpetrators in 420 of the cases.

THE STATE PROTECTS THE FAMILY, NOT THE WOMAN

Lawyer Sevda Aydın expressed that the true problem lied with the state mentality.

Aydın said it was wrong that the women who suffered violence were brought together with the men and the state acted as an intermediator. Stressing that the women not wanting to be placed in shelters that resemble prisons was an important factor in the rising violence, Aydın said the state was focused on protecting the family and not the woman.

Aydın said: “There is a sound law in place, but the practical application is lacking. The police, prosecutors and judges have shortcomings. There is negligence. The women who complain are sent back to their homes without the prosecutors being alerted. This causes deaths. Most of the women’s shelters are not suitable. There is a time limit in those places, and the women are forced to return to their husbands because they are not offered a chance to rebuild a life, and then they end up murdered.”

THE STATE LOOKS FOR FLAWS IN THE WOMEN

Aydın said: “What is the approach from the judges, the prosecutors and the police towards women? It doesn’t make a difference how sound the law is, unless the mentality changes. The woman can’t express herself in front of the judge. The mentality is flawed and victimizes the women. The judges, prosecutors and police are always lookign for a flaw in the women. There is a sense of ‘exposing the women’s lies’. The police officer’s mentality is to ‘return the woman to her husband’.”

Lawyer Sevda Aydın said the important thing is the mentality, and continued: “There are women who are more discriminatory than the men. The female police officers are more problematic in this sense.”