USAK Report, No.12-01: "Violence Against Women in Turkey"

Date: 09.03.2012

The emergent issue of violence against women has been occupying Turkey’s agenda, especially with the excessive increase in the rates of physical and sexual abuse throughout recent years. While a draft bill is about to be legislated by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA), the International Strategic Research Center (USAK) has released a report titled “Violence Against Women in Turkey” dealing with the socio-economic, cultural and global aspects of the issue as well as problems emerging from the lack of effective implementation measures. The report was met with great interest by the national media. Authored by USAK experts Dilek Karal and Elvan Aydemir, the report has shed light on the long ignored national and international statistics on the issue to some extent. In addition, the USAK report also elaborated on the strong bond between violence against women and the perceptions toward and applications of the idea of gender equality.

According to the report, nearly half of women (%42) in Turkey have been subjected to physical or sexual violence or both throughout their lives. The patriarchal cultural values dominant in especially the lower socio-economic classes prevent women from explicitly voicing problems regarding their subjugation to inhumane behavior such as sexual harassment, or from denouncing such behavior to relevant authorities such as the police or courts. More tragic is the rate of women subjected to violence (around 42 percent, which places Turkey’s way above European levels). This is far from matching the total application rate of women to shelters or the Social Services and Child Protection Agency (SHÇEK), which is around only one percent of those traumatized. The report found that violence affects women of all social classes, but nevertheless 47 percent of victims of gender-based violence are from a low social class. The human development index values of our country’s respective regions are inversely proportionate to the ratio of women subjected to violence. On the other hand, the density of violence against women in urban areas demonstrate that social perceptions of men and the development of inter-family identities, deliberately or not, are left far behind the material social transformations which entailed high rates of urbanization and an increasing social participation of women through prestigious economic occupations and within the public realm in general.

The final report has reflected the general need for establishing mechanisms to enforce the protection of women by local authorities such as the courts and police. In this regard, policy makers need to focus on gender mainstreaming as well as taking into close consideration modern regulations and statistical data provided internationally on women protection measures in other countries. Children should also be included within the scope of the problem, since families doomed with domestic sexual and physical violence constitute the worst example for the boys and girls who passively normalize violence against the opposite sex and against family members under such conditions. Thus far, incidents of murder against women have increased by 1400 percent in the seven years preceding 2010 according to the statistics of the Ministry of Justice, and the numbers grow by hundreds more from month to month. Today and from now on, it is up to the policy makers’ swift and moral action to coordinate relevant state actors in accordance with this emergent public demand.

Not:Please contact with USAK Secretary for detailed information regarding the report and expert views.

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