A transgender woman was stabbed to death early Wednesday morning in İzmir, the Artı Gerçek news website reported.
According to Artı Gerçek, Ece E. was allegedly killed by a knife to the neck by a man identified only by the initials M.F., who fled the scene of the crime in a taxi.
Upon hearing the commotion, neighbors called the police, who were able to track the taxi based on its license plate number and detained M.F. in the Torbalı district of İzmir.
Ece E.’s body was taken to the Council of Forensic Medicine in İzmir for autopsy.
The local prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into the murder.
Turkey was ranked 48th among 49 countries as regards the human rights of LGBT people, according to the Rainbow Europe Map and Index 2022 published by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)-Europe. According to the ILGA, transgender individuals in Turkey are at high risk of experiencing violence and discrimination at the individual level and discrimination and inequality at the institutional level.
Transgender women, in particular, are likely to experience discrimination due to their gender identity, thereby limiting their employment opportunities.
Transgender individuals’ experiences of violence and discrimination are intertwined with the lack of protection they receive from the government. Although neither being transgender nor homosexual is explicitly criminalized in Turkey, the LGBT population has not been accepted in Turkish society.
The index pointed out that transgender people are less likely to engage in the occupation for which they were trained as well as more likely to experience poverty, lack health insurance and attempt suicide due to discrimination than their cisgender LGB counterparts.
