Screenshot from news report by Gazete Duvar. Women marching in Van province. Edited on Canva.

“Türkiye wants change,” read a post from the popular Instagram account Turkishdictionary, citing data that indicated seven women had been murdered in a period of three days. “Let's be honest. Turkey has a problem with violence,” read another post shared on Instagram.

Over the past weeks, rights groups in Turkey have been doing all they can to draw attention to the violence issues in the country. Earlier this month, two women were killed in Istanbul. İkbal Uzuner and Ayşenur Halil were killed by 19-year-old Semih Çelik, who took his own life after committing the crimes. Çelik reportedly had previous convictions and struggled with mental health. He also was connected to numerous “incel” (involuntary celibate) groups in Turkey, which are known for calling on men to rape, harass, and murder women, via social media platforms. The most recent woman found killed was Rojin Kabaiş, a 21-year-old university student who was missing for 18 days.

Dead women and children

Uzuner and Halil were not the only women whose names made the headlines in Turkey last week. Another woman was sexually harassed in Istanbul by two men who were released initially but re-arrested after a video of the assault made it to social media and led to public outcry.

Journalist Melisa Gulbas, in her recent piece, shared that violence against women and children is reaching an unprecedented level in Turkey. Comparing data from 2021 and 2022, Gulbas wrote there had been an approximately 60 percent increase in sexual assault cases against women in 2023.

Also in October, a two-year-old baby died in a coma after being sexually abused in Tekirdağ province. Speaking to journalists, the head of the Tekirdağ Bar Association, Egemen Gürcün said child abuse has been on the rise in the province, “citing 283 requests for lawyers in child abuse cases from the bar association in 2023 alone, with 172 requests so far in 2024,” reported Bianet.

In September, a 26-year-old policewoman was killed by an assailant who held 26 criminal offenses.

Also in September, the country was rocked with the devastating news that eight-year-old Narin Güran's body was found near the village where she lived with her family. The little girl's death triggered country-wide protests and calls for state accountability. Critics say that the state's policies against abuse are inadequate and are heavily influenced by religious values and outdated norms that are permissive toward abuse and abusers.

In 2022, following the release of a scathing Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, Emma Sinclair-Webb, Europe and Central Asia Division associate director at HRW, explained why it is so difficult to combat gender-based violence in Turkey:

The government’s approach to combating violence against women is framed in paternalistic, conservative terms. The authorities see it as part of a national duty to protect women, whom they see as vulnerable and breakable, and to support the institution of the family. Turkey’s president is on record opposing gender equality and it has been written out of government policy. So while we are seeing government efforts to tackle violence against women, the government simultaneously undermines its own efforts by not seeing the fight against domestic violence as part of promoting women’s rights or ensuring gender equality.

Another report published in 2023 by the Turkish Women's Associations Federation (TKDF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Turkey, found that 8 out of 10 people subjected to violence were women, that 73 percent of women subject to violence were married and that men were perpetrators of violence in 90 percent of registered cases divided among spouses (63 percent), and family members (21 percent).

According to the platform We Will Stop Femicides, 315 women were killed by men, and 248 women were found dead in suspicious circumstances as per platform's documentation in 2023. So far this year, 319 women have been killed, according to another documentation platform.

The state's solution to these deaths is to block access to Discord, because, according to Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc, the platform was the source of the violence, triggering crimes of “child sexual abuse and obscenity.”

A return to the Istanbul convention at last?

In 2021, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, a Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women. Since the withdrawal, women's rights groups have demanded that Turkey reenter the convention, though Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thinks otherwise. Speaking at his party meeting on October 9, the president said, “Our withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention has not had the slightest negative impact on women's rights.” The president also vowed to arrest and put on trial those with prior criminal records and prevent criminals from roaming freely in the country.

“It is the impunity,” that is the main reason for the murders of women, children, and stray animals, said Sera Kadigil, a member of the Worker's Party and the parliament, in a video interview.

Meanwhile, according to news reports, police also started monitoring the “incel” groups while the sale of pepper spray has skyrocketed in the country following the series of murders over the last two months. Women's rights advocates and scores of women have also taken to the streets across the country, demanding a change in policies.