Women tell accounts of domestic violence in CHP report

Umut Erdem ANKARA / Hürriyet

AA Photo

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has compiled a report on women’s shelters, citing women’s accounts on domestic violence.

Five female deputies and CHP members visited women’s shelters in Ankara, Tekirdağ and Gaziantep, and listened to the stories of women who have been subjected to violence by their husbands.

One of the women quoted in the report was the 24-year-old A.D. She said she was subjected to violence within two days of getting married because she could not look after her husband’s mother. She now has two sons and a daughter.

M.A., 28, said the violence started when she was four months pregnant with her son. Her husband abused her because she "came home late."

S.Y., a 24-year-old with three children, has been in the shelter for two months. She said her husband beat her, cut her nose with a knife and put a skewer into her eye and nose. He was imprisoned for two months for using violence.

“Honor” is among the main "justifications" for domestic violence, according to the report.

In one such example, a 42-year-old woman, who was married at the age of 13, was raped by her sister’s husband’s brother. She became pregnant and did not want to have the baby, and was then stabbed to death by her eldest son for “family honor.”

Another woman in the report was a minor who had a child outside of marriage. After her father rejected the child, she was forced to marry another man, after which she went to the shelter.