Horrendous recent killings of women caused Istanbul’s streets to be filled with marchingwomen in October. So far this year 2024, already 295 femicides have been recorded, with an additional 184 suspicious deaths.
A great disturbance in the country was caused by 19-year-old Semih Çelik, who decapitated a young woman and threw her head from the touristy walls of Istanbul while her mother was watching. He killed another young woman as well by slitting her throat before he committedsuicide in front of a crowd. In August, an 8-year-old girl disappeared in southeast Türkiye. The schoolgirl’s corpse was found by a river 19 days later. Another woman was shot in the head multiple times by her husband in broad daylight.
According to the ‘We Will Stop Femicides Platform’, 315 women were killed by men in Türkiye last year. Moreover, 248 deaths of women were recorded as suspicious. These suspicious deaths are alleged suicides in which the women oftentimes somehow fell off balconies, but to which no possible reasons or motivations could be found.
Last year, 65% of the femicides took place in the supposed sanctity of their homes. The men used firearms for most of the killings, stabbing ranks second. Almost half of the women were killed by their husbands, 20% of whom were going through a divorce, and 6% of the killersare sons. Prior to the killings, at least 10% of the men had already been convicted. 28 of the killed women had protection orders, which supposedly keep a victim of violence and harassment safe.
Anger regarding the lax way of dealing with such issues rises and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan receives great criticism for his negligence. We can link these happenings to 2021,when the Turkish government withdrew the Istanbul Convention without debates in Parliament. The Istanbul Convention is meant to enforce prevention of violence against women, provide support for survivors, and prosecute perpetrators. Experts say that Türkiyeshould analyse data on femicide and establish regulations in order to prevent them.
Bibliography:
https://www.politico.eu/article/outrage-murder-women-turkey-erdogan-feminicide-laws-ak-party
https://www.dw.com/en/outrage-in-turkey-over-spate-of-brutal-murders-of-women/a-70542846
Kiril Tocickij 
Pierre Yvan Belinga 
Teo Verchere