129 women killed in six months in Turkey, lawmaker says

ANKARA

Şefika Söylemez in Çanakkale on July 8 was one of the victims of the latest wave of murders against women. Her husband is arrested for the crime.

Some 129 women were killed in the first half of the year, up from 88 in the same period a year earlier, said Aylin Nazlıaka, a main opposition Republican People’s Party deputy, at a July 11 press meeting at the Parliament. 

The figures came at time when the number of overall murders in the country showed a sharp increase, separate reports cited. Nazlıaka said 58 women and children were raped as 292 women were wounded, adding that the country was facing “systematic murders” in the last decade.

Only last month 17 women and girls were killed, she said as the number of rape incidents reached 26. Some other 56 were wounded.

Some 17.6 percent of the victims were killed because they wanted to divorce.

On July 8, the day that the Family Ministry announced that there were no women in Turkey under protection, 21 year old Şefika Söylemez was killed by her husband in the western province of Çanakkale, Nazlıkaya recalled, asking “Is the sole murderer Şefika’s husband?”

“Her murderers are those who remain deaf to what goes on. It is the Family Ministry, it is the representatives of the government. The society has killed Şefika,” she said.

Murders increase in Ramadan

A separate report shows that murder rates in Turkey have increased up to around seven murders per day in the first 10 days of Ramadan.

The Turkish National Police Department (EMG) announced that on the first 10 days of Ramadan, 68 murders were committed, which increased the daily murder rate from three to seven murders per day.

In another research made by the Umut Foundation, it was said that 114 women that were murdered in the first five months of 2014.

According to the research made by the foundation, 15 of the 68 that were murdered in the first 10 days of Ramadan were women. In Turkey, 22 women get murdered monthly, but the number has increased to 15 in the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan. According to official reports the motives for the murders are generally reported as ‘’an instance of outrage.”