A recent report by Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Gamze Akkuş İlgezdi has revealed a critical shortage in the number and capacity of women’s shelters in Turkey, exposing a growing gap in support for victims of domestic violence, the BirGün daily reported.
According to the report, there are only 150 shelters across the country, each providing just eight beds per 100,000 women.
“Considering the population growth and the surge in violence cases, this capacity is clearly insufficient. This situation shows that women are not adequately protected by the state and indicates an urgent need to reevaluate shelter policies,” said the report.
Comparing the numbers to other European countries, the report found that Turkey is behind in providing adequate shelter for women. A 2022 report by Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE), a Vienna-based nonprofit advocating for women’s rights, found that Norway had 34 shelter beds per 100,000 women, followed by Germany with 30, France with 26 and Spain with 23.
“These numbers are not just statistics; they are a direct indicator of the state’s capacity to protect women. In Turkey the number of shelters remains largely symbolic, and this disparity directly affects women’s chances of survival. It reveals a serious gap in the state’s basic responsibilities to prevent violence against women.”
The report explained that the government urgently needed to address the deficiency in women’s shelters since femicide and gender-based violence were on a worrying increase. According to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform (KCDP), at least 394 women were murdered by men last year. Moreover, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that 80 percent of people subject to domestic violence in Turkey were women.
The report concluded that it was the duty of the state not only to punish perpetrators but also to prevent violence. “This process of prevention is only possible through a strong prevention chain. The links of this chain include effective law enforcement intervention, fair judicial processes, enforcement of protection orders and the establishment of sufficient and qualified shelters. If one of these links is missing, the entire chain breaks, and women’s right to life is endangered. In today’s Turkey, the shelter link has become the weakest link in this chain. This situation reveals not just negligence but a structural violation of women’s right to life and a severe failure in social policy.”
Femicide 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 affording them impunity.
Turkish courts have repeatedly drawn criticism due to their tendency to hand down lenient sentences to offenders, claiming that the crime was merely “motivated by passion” or by interpreting victims’ silence as consent.
In a move that attracted national and international outrage, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used a presidential decree to withdraw the country from 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. Turkey had been a party to the convention until 2021.
Erdoğan’s allies have also been calling for further rollbacks, urging the repeal of a domestic law that stipulates protection mechanisms for women who either have suffered or are at risk of suffering violence.
