More than 2,500 femicide ‘reported’ in Turkish media in 10 years

ISTANBUL

More than 2,500 femicides have been reported in Turkish media between 2010 and 2020, according to an interactive map that reveals where murders are committed the most and who the perpetrators are.

Violence against women and femicides continue to be major problems in Turkey, with statistics showing that current preventive measures are far from sufficient.

Ceyda Ulukaya, a daily Milliyet reporter, has created a detailed database of femicide committed in Turkey, covering a period of 10 years, with a comprehensive mapping study that reveals a disturbing fact.

Some 2,534 women were victims of femicide in the country in the 10-year period mentioned, according to the study published on kadıncinayetleri.org on Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The data showing the distribution of femicides by years show that there has not been a significant decrease in killings over the years and have even increased significantly since 2014.

The study noted that femicides have increased by at least 25 percent in the same time period.

The map shows that the most femicides occur in Istanbul, a Turkish metropolis with over 16 million population, on a provincial basis, and the Mediterranean province of Adana’s Seyhan stands out on the district basis.

While Istanbul was followed by the Aegean province of İzmir and the capital Ankara, the southeastern province of Gaziantep’s Şahinbey and Şehitkamil districts were listed behind Seyhan.

The least number of women were killed in the Black Sea provinces of Artvin, Karabük and Gümüşhane, three Turkish provinces with relatively low populations.

Spouses, on the other hand, became the number one perpetrator of femicide, as four out of 10 women were killed by their partners and one out of every five femicides occurred at the stage of divorce or separation.

Revealing that one out in every five women killed were victims of either violence or harassment, the study showed that six out of every 10 women who were subjected to violence had applied for protection for security purposes.

Femicides were mostly committed at home and with firearms.

Among the “justifications” for these murders are suspicion of being cheated on, divorce requests, refusal to get back together, and so-called “honor killings.”

Meanwhile, some 369 women were killed across Turkey in 2021 so far, according to a different report by Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu (We Will Stop Femicides Platform), a women’s rights organization that monitors violence against women.