Şahin urges officials to curb domestic violence

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin has commented on the recent murder of a woman by her husband and said that everyone should question why victim Ayşe İnci could not be protected despite all the efforts on the issue.

Speaking at a meeting on “Family Protection and Preventing Violence,” Şahin said the incident hurt everybody. “We should all question ourselves on why we couldn’t protect this woman despite all our struggles on the issue. Whatever investigation is done, a person’s life can not come back. We should first of all believe in what we are doing,” Şahin said, addressing a group of people including vice governors, district governors, judges, police, prosecutors and gendarmerie.

Ayşe İnce, 34, was murdered by her estranged husband on April 23 in Istanbul, despite a restraining order being issued by a court against her husband two months ago. Her husband, Mehmet İnce, was detained last week for threatening to kill his wife, but was later released by a prosecutor. In her speech, Minister Şahin said violence was a human rights problem of human rights and issues such as violence against women and honor killings were social problems.

She added that dealing with these issues required a coordinated effort between institutions, and that no single institution could prevent these problems alone.