Twenty-nine women were murdered by men in Turkey in November, while another 22 died under suspicious circumstances, the We Will Stop Femicide Platform reported.
Of the 29 women who were murdered, 24 were killed by their current or former husbands or boyfriends and one by other relatives.
At least eight of the victims were killed over their decisions concerning their own lives, such as seeking a divorce, refusing reconciliation or rejecting a romantic relationship or a marriage proposal. Two women were murdered due to financial disputes. The motives behind 18 of the murders could not be determined.
According to the platform 41 percent of the women were killed by their husbands. Most murders, 59 percent, took place in the victims’ homes, and 76 percent of the women were killed with firearms.
Femicides and violence against women are serious problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten every day. The We Will Stop Femicide Platform recorded at least 394 femicides in 2024.
The group stressed that impunity remains the most acute injustice in femicide cases. Perpetrators are often never prosecuted, receive acquittals or benefit from claims that the women died by suicide. This climate of impunity enables further violence, the platform warned.
Critics say policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government contribute to the problem by allowing perpetrators to avoid accountability. Such criticism intensified after Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, formally known as the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.
The convention is an international accord that requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation.
Despite opposition from the international community and women’s rights groups, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a decree in March 2021 that pulled the country out of the international treaty.
Erdoğan claimed 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.”
Turkey was ranked 127th out of 146 countries with respect to inequalities between men and women in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2024.
