The We Will Stop Femicide Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız) has revealed that 46 women asked for their help in January, claiming they were victims of domestic violence, the T24 news website reported.
According to the platform many of the women said they had filed complaints against abusive men but that the authorities had ignored them. The police were the worst offenders in domestic violence cases, dismissing 40 percent of complaints filed.
“The police refused to take action against complaints of domestic violence, while violence prevention and monitoring center ŞÖNİM refused to accommodate victims in their women’s shelters. This clearly shows that Law No. 6284, a domestic provision that provides protection mechanisms for women and children who have suffered or are deemed at risk of suffering domestic violence, is not being implemented by the authorities,” said the platform.
ŞÖNİM was established by the Ministry of Family and Social Services to combat gender-based violence.
The We Will Stop Femicide Platform gave examples of incidents where women’s appeals fell on deaf ears. One woman said a man had threatened to kill her. but when she tried to complain to the police, they refused to accept her complaint.
A police officer reached out to the platform, admitting that the police force routinely dismissed gender-based violence complaints and asked the platform to bring this to the public’s attention.
Another woman who claimed she was beaten by her estranged husband appealed to ŞÖNİM, but since they did not consider her life to be under threat, they refused to offer her any protection.
Femicides and violence against women are chronic problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten almost every day. ŞÖNİM documented 1,360,027 gender-based violence cases between 2013 and 2023. 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.
In a move that attracted national and international outrage, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan through a presidential decree pulled the country out of an international treaty in March 2021 that requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation.
The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is an international accord designed to protect women’s rights and prevent domestic violence in societies and was opened to the signature of Council of Europe member countries in 2011.
Erdoğan’s allies have been calling for further rollbacks, urging the repeal of Law No. 6284.
