Femicide in Turkey

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From the women's protest of the murder of Azra Gülendam Haytaoğlu, 2 August 2021, Kadıköy Square, Istanbul

Femicide in Turkey is one of the acts of violence against women in the country.[1] The number of femicides has increased significantly in Turkey in the 2000s, compared to previous years. In 2019 alone, 474 women were killed. It was the year in which the most women were killed in the country in the last 10 years.[2][3] According to the annual report of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform", 300 women were murdered by men in 2020, and 171 women were found suspiciously dead.[4] Between 2010 and 2019, the number of femicides decreased only in 2011, the year the Istanbul Convention was signed.[4]

Among the main justifications put forward by criminals to normalize their crimes are; women's demand for separation, honor, deception, jealousy, and more.[5]

Femicide statistics according to some official data

According to the reports of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform", there were a total of 2,996 femicides between 2010 and 2020 in Turkey.[4]

There are different data on femicide in Turkey published by official institutions and women's organizations.[6] Since statistics on the number of women killed by their partners or family members in Turkey are not shared by relevant government agencies, official data is considered insufficient to reflect the extent of the femicide problem.[7]

Civil organizations that started collecting data on femicide in Turkey are Anıt Sayaç, Bianet and We Will Stop Femicide Platform.

The response of the then Minister of Justice, Sadullah Ergin, to a parliamentary question in 2009 is considered to be an important piece of official data on femicide in Turkey.[7] In this response, the number of femicides committed in the country between 2002 and 2008 was explained as being 66 in 2002, 83 in 2003, 128 in 2004, 317 in 2005, 663 in 2006, 1011 in 2007, and 806 in 2008. The 14-fold increase in femicides from the years 2002 to 2008 was widely discussed in the media and among politicians.[7]

In the answer given by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies to another parliamentary question asked in 2013, it was reported that 171 murders of women were committed in 2009, 177 in 2010, 163 in 2011 and 128 in the first 9 months of 2012.[8]

In January 2021, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on his Twitter account that the number of women who lost their lives in femicides within the scope of Law No. 6284 was 353 in 2017, 279 in 2018, 336 in 2019 and 266 in 2020.[9]

Femicide statistics by years

According to the data of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform" (KCDP), 80 in 2008, 109 in 2009, 180 in 2010, 121 in 2011, 210 in 2012, 237 in 2013, 294 in 2014, 303 in 2015, 328 in 2016, 409 in 2017, 440 in 2018, and 474 in 2019, adding up to a total of 3,185 women were killed between 2008 and 2019.[2][10]

According to the 2019 report of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform", 115 of the 474 femicides committed in 2019 were recorded as suspicious and the culprits could not be found.[2] According to the 2020 report, 300 women were killed by men in Turkey in 2020 and 171 women were found suspiciously dead.[4]

The table shows the number of deaths by years and the data of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform", shared on the website Anıt Sayaç, made for women who have died of violence in Turkey, is as follows:

Year Number of deaths
(Anıt Sayaç)		 Number of deaths
(KCDP)
2008 66[11] 80
2009 125[12] 109
2010 203[13] 180
2011 130[14] 121
2012 145[15] 210
2013 231[16] 237
2014 290[17] 294
2015 293[18] 303
2016 289[19] 316
2017 351[20] 409
2018 404[21] 440
2019 422[22] 474
2020 410[23] 300[24]
2021 433[25] 280[26]
2022 409[27] 334[28]
2023 418[29] 315[30]
2024 440[31] 394[32]

Femicide statistics by perpetrator

A study examining 1,260 femicide cases that took place between 2008 and 2018, shows that the husband of the murdered woman is at the top of the list of perpetrators in femicides (623).[33] Murders by lovers (160) take the second place and ex-husband murders (94) take the third place. The fourth rank is "murders committed by an acquaintance" (88), with cases of theft and rape. This is followed by murders of relatives (49), murder by brother (48), murder by son (48), murder by father (38), and murder by a stranger (18).

Of the women murdered in 2019, 134 were by their spouses, 51 by their husbands, 29 by their relatives, 25 by their ex-husband, 25 by their son, neighbor or parents at the same school as their child, 8 by their former partner, 19 by acquaintances, 15 by their father, 13 by their brother, and 3 by people the women did not know.[2]

Almost all of the women killed in Turkey in 2024 (%97.5) were murdered by men they knew. The most common perpetrators of femicides were husbands, accounting for 42% of the cases.[32]

Femicide statistics by crime scene

According to the KCDP report, in 2019; 292 women were killed at home and 52 women were killed in the middle of the street.[2] 9 in their cars, 6 in their workplace, 5 in a hotel, 5 in a park, 3 in a shop, 2 in an entertainment venue, 2 in a hospital, 1 in a cafe, 1 in a school, 1 was killed in another public place. 31 of the murdered women were killed or their bodies were found in water or near water. 32 of them were killed or found dead in land areas such as forests, pastures, picnic areas, gardens and fields. 3 women were killed or found dead in desolate places such as barns and abandoned buildings. It could not be determined where 29 women were killed.[34] According to the KCDP 2024 statistics, 57% of women were killed in their homes.[32]

Femicide statistics by killing methods

A study examining 1,260 murder cases out of more than 2,000 femicides that took place between 2008 and 2018, found that femicides were mostly committed with firearms (679), followed by cutting tools (404), strangulation (84), battering (64), and revealed that women were killed by torture (15).[33]

Of the 474 women killed in 2019, 185 were killed with a firearm, 101 with a sharp object, 29 by drowning, 27 by being beaten, 19 by being thrown from a height, 6 by chemical medicine, and 6 by burning. How 101 of them were killed could not be determined.[34] In the femicides committed in 2024, being killed by firearms ranked first in the statistics, accounting for 57%.[32]

Murders of women disguised as suicide

In 1999, contrary to the general trend in the world, female suicides were higher than male suicides in Turkey; has caused the phenomenon of suicide to take place more in the agenda of Turkey. In 1999, in Batman and its central districts, the average suicide rate in Turkey doubled in the first eight months of 2000 and 80.8% of those who committed suicide were women. As a result, many public institutions and non-governmental organizations felt the need to conduct research on women's suicides in the region.[35] Most of the female suicides are caused by the pressure of honor; Some of the events that were reflected in the media as suicides were honor killings that were made to look like suicides; It has been claimed that some of them are suicides as a result of the pressure of custom.[35]

Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and Black Sea regions, where the highest number of honor killings are committed in Turkey, are the regions where suicides are committed due to the pressure of honor and the incidents that are shown as suicides even though they are murders are concentrated.[35]

Famous femicides

Some of the many famous femicide cases:

Organizations

Some of the organizations fighting to end femicide in Turkey are as follows:

  • We Will Stop Femicide Platform (Turkish: Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu) : A platform established in 2010 with the foresight that femicide may become a social problem in Turkey, with the increase in femicides in the country in 2010 and the Münevver Karabulut case coming to the attention of the Turkish people in 2010.[52]
  • Femicide Platform: Femicide Platform, in short KCP, is a platform established in 2020 by women who want to put an end to the increasing femicide.
  • Emergency Action Group Against Femicide: It is a platform established in July 2014 to demand urgent action against femicides.[53]
  • Şefkat-der: It is a Konya-based association, whose founder and chairman are men, and its members are volunteer women, and which produces works in the field of social aid with an understanding of religious-based philanthropy. The association has organized remarkable and controversial campaigns in the fight against femicide and violence against women.[54][55][56]
çekilmesi protesto edilirken, 5 Ağustos 2020, Kadıköy, İstanbul
Protesting Turkey's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, 5 August 2020, Kadıköy, Istanbul

Reflections

See also

References

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