53 women killed last month in Turkey: Women’s rights group

ISTANBUL

Some 53 women were killed across Turkey in September, making it the most deadly month of this year so far for women, according to a report by Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu (We Will Stop Femicides Platform), a women’s rights organization that monitors violence against women.

According to the report, 17 women were killed by their husbands, six by acquaintances or relatives, five by their boyfriends, three by their sons, two by their brothers, two by their former husbands and one by someone she did not know. The perpetrators of the remaining 17 femicides could not be determined.

Two of the women were killed on the pretext of “financial reasons” and nine for either wanting to divorce, refusing to get together or turning someone down. The reason for 31 of the killings could not be determined, while 11 of the femicides were logged as “suspicious deaths.”

“As long as it is not determined by whom the women are killed and due to which reason, a fair judicial process is not conducted, suspects and murderers do not get deterrent fines and preventive measures are not applied, the violence keeps changing dimension and continues to exist,” said the report.

Eighteen of the women were killed with sharp objects, 12 with firearms, two were strangled to death, one died from being strangled and assaulted with a sharp object, one was killed with a chemical substance and another was burned to death.

Thirty of the women were killed in their own homes, six on the street, two in a park, one in a stable, one in a garden, one in an entertainment venue, one at a workplace, one at a grocery store and one at a hotel. The bodies of two of the victims were found in dams and another two, in forests. The authorities could not determine where the rest of the five women were killed, according to the report.

With the latest figure from September, the total number of women killed since the beginning of this year equaled 347, said the activist platform. In 2018, the number of women killed was 440, according to the same group.