A total of 145 women were murdered in Turkey in the first six months of 2025, while an additional 215 died under suspicious circumstances, the Bianet news website reported.
In June alone, 14 women were murdered and 37 died under suspicious circumstances. Most of the victims were killed by men they knew, often in their own homes. In many cases, the murders were triggered by the woman’s decision to separate or refusal to reconcile.
Bianet also keeps a record of developments in the fight against gender-based violence, harassment and rape targeting women as well as femicide, including the sentences handed down to perpetrators, both convictions and acquittals.
According to their reports, 27 femicide cases were brought before the judiciary during June. In most of these trials, prosecutors demanded aggravated life sentences for the accused, and in several cases, the courts delivered such verdicts.
Some suspicious death cases involving women ended with acquittals or the release of suspects.
Femicides and violence against women are chronic problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten almost every day. Many critics say the main reason behind the situation is the policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which protects violent and abusive men by granting them impunity.
Turkish courts have repeatedly attracted criticism due to their tendency to hand down lenient sentences to offenders, claiming that the crime was “motivated by passion” or by interpreting victims’ silence as consent.
According to the leading women’s rights group We Will Stop Femicide Platform (KCDP), the only year when the number of femicides dropped was 2011, the year when Turkey signed an international treaty, known as the Istanbul Convention, aimed at combatting domestic violence.
Despite opposition from the international community and women’s rights groups, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan withdrew Turkey from the convention in March 2021 with a special decree. The treaty required governments to adopt legislation prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation.
Erdoğan claimed at the time that the treaty had been “hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality” which he said was “incompatible” with Turkey’s “social and family values.”
Since Turkey’s withdrawal from the treaty, Turkish authorities have been pressuring women’s rights organizations for their activist work.
Despite the pressure, the organizations have said they will continue monitoring violence and femicide in the country.
