Female police officer to run new domestic violence bureau

Gülden Aydın - ISTANBUL

Turkey’s top police body has appointed a female police officer as the head of a newly-founded bureau in the Istanbul Police Department, one among dozens that were established across the country specializing in domestic violence against women and children.

Kıymet Bilir Değerli, 39, was appointed as head of the Istanbul Police Department Public Order Unit Bureau for Fighting Domestic Violence Against Women and Children by the Turkish National Police (EGM), as Turkey established new police bureaus across the country to fight domestic violence involving women and children.

The move to establish the bureaus in all of Turkey’s 81 provinces emerged as a result of plans by the Family and Social Policies and Interior Ministries to reduce violence committed against women and children.

Police officers working at the bureaus will take women who have been subjected to violence to special rooms to allow them to recuperate.

Police will then communicate all of the women’s rights to them in the bureaus, coordinating steps such as the provision of psychological support and providing women with personal guards if necessary.

“The victim should go to the police. She will get the social and psychological results she expects,” said Değerli, speaking to daily Hürriyet.

Değerli said women subjected to domestic violence should collaborate with the police officer assigned to guard them. Değerli also criticized the mindset in TV series and visual media that rationalizes and condones violence against women.

“Children are the most affected individuals from violence. They normalize violence in mind. They commit violent acts they learn [from television] on those they see as ‘weak,’” Değerli said, adding that violent acts were shown in detail on television shows.

Pointing out that the number of personnel staff at the bureaus was still short across the country, Değerli called on volunteers to join their fight against domestic violence.

“We need volunteers to help us out as psychological therapists, sociologists and simultaneous translators for women with disabilities in hearing and speaking in each and every district,” she said.

Değerli said some 300 personnel, most of them women, were currently working at the bureaus but the number could be increased depending on local needs.