The Legal Aid Office Against Sexual Harassment and Rape in Detention shared a report containing the statistical data of its 24-year research on the occasion of 25 November International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The report, titled "25 November 2021 Everything is as it was", underlined that the Law Office has been providing free legal assistance to women since 1997.

The report said that there have been significant changes especially in the written law, and underlined that the women's liberation struggle played a major role in all of these changes.

Remembering the Istanbul Convention

The report recalled that there were significant changes in the field of violence against women in Turkey in 2005, and added that "in 2011, the Istanbul Convention, the most important convention in the field of violence against women at international level, was signed."

The report also mentioned that the Istanbul Convention is a great source of support and strength for all women who have been subjected to violence and for lawyers representing them.

The report said that the state's mentality has never changed on the issue of state-induced sexual violence against women and added that "sexual torture against women and trans women, whether in detention, house raids, street protests or for any reason, always ends in impunity. In the cases we have taken up, not a single official has been sentenced. And this is the clearest indication of how dire the situation is.”

The report said that sexual torture is the most difficult form of torture to explain as well as the most difficult form of torture to both follow and prove. The judicial authorities only accept the Forensic Medicine reports as evidence in the documentation of sexual torture, said the report, underlining that the Forensic Medicine is represented by an official expert and completely dependent on the political power, and that independent physicians and hospitals were not accepted.

793 applications in 24 years

The report includes statistical data that has been kept for the last 24 years. The number of applications made in 24 years is 793 in total. While the number of applications made for rape is 118 while, that for sexual harassment is 675. The report also includes the distribution of perpetrators who committed crimes.

The majority of the perpetrators are police

The number of police officers was 482 among the perpetrators, while the number of gendarmes/soldiers was 143, special team members 38, prison guards 114, confessors 4, journalists 1, prisoners 24, mayor 1, court officer/guards 2, other public officials 76, ISIS member 148, FSA members 1, private security 1, MIT member 1.

Kurdish women the first among victims

Among the women exposed to sexual violations, the number of Kurdish women is 571, the number of Turkish women is 181, Assyrian 2, German 1, Romani 4, Bulgarian 1, Romanian 1, Austrian 1, Arab 7, Turkmen 2, Uzbek 1, Afghan 12, Moldovan 1, Armenian 1, Iranian 2, Georgian 1, Albanian 1.

In the 24-year application period, the reasons for women's detention is due to war in 168 cases, political reasons in 486, judicial reasons 139.

36 applications made in the last year

In the report, the number of applications made in the last year was recorded as 36. Rape accounted fro 6 of the application, sexual harassment for 30 (7 women were subjected to strip searches).

Among the perpetrators of crimes in the last year, the number of police officers has been recorded as 23. In addition, the report listed 10 prison guards, 2 other public officials, 1 MIT.

The Kurdish women who have submitted an application for sexual violence is 22. In addition, applications were filed by 11 Turkish women, 1 Arab, 1 Georgian, 1 Albanian. Among the reasons for the detention, 34 women were arrested for political reasons and 2 for judicial reasons.