Laws don't prevent out-of-control violence against women in Turkey.

Laws don't prevent out-of-control violence against women in Turkey.(TZ).

Since its foundation, the Turkish Republic has always taken steps to strengthen the position of women in the social and political spheres, giving women the right to elect and be elected before many Western countries.

However, violence against women continues to be a source of embarrassment to Turkey, with large numbers of women falling victim to honor killings each year despite the official introduction of Law No. 6284 in March 2012 -- passed in accordance with a European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) convention on preventing and combating violence against women.
On Jan. 31, 2014, 19-year-old Hacer was buried. She had been strangled with a rope and thrown into a well by her two brothers because she was pregnant and unmarried. At the time of her death, she had lived in a Diyarbakır women's shelter until her family members brought her home, claiming that they weren't going beat her again. This proved to be tragically incorrect. Hacer was taken immediately to a deserted area and murdered. Afterwards, Hacer's family told those who knew Hacer that she had gone missing.Hacer's case is far from unique in Turkey.

In light of this situation, the Ministry of Family and Social Policy has initiated a national action plan to continue until 2015 with the goal of eradicating violence against women. The policy includes activities such as reaching out to young men during their compulsory military service with presentations about honor killings and women's human rights and training law enforcement officers, healthcare personnel and clerics.

The ministry's website states that so far, 71,000 police officers, 65,000 healthcare personnel and 17,000 religious officials have been offered guidance on how to better serve women facing violence.And yet, activists say the ministry's work neither desires nor achieves equality between the sexes, nor is it effective in creating awareness and or changing opinions.

The İstanbul Bar Association's Center of Women's Rights vice president, Afet Gülen Köse, told Sunday's Zaman that “even after passing Law No. 6284 after the European Court of Human Rights pronounced Turkey to be unwilling and unable to protect women, the Turkish state is still protecting the family, not women, who are not perceived as separate individuals.” 

Furthermore, Köse criticized the state for not opening sufficient numbers of Violence Prevention and Monitoring Centers (KOZA). “There is only one KOZA in İstanbul and two others in Bursa and İzmir. This is not enough to accommodate all the women who need protection and assistance,” said Köse.

Gönül İşler, president of the Association of Women's Rights Protection, shared a similar perspective with Köse, claiming that there is a big problem with law enforcement. “Even if the judge is a woman, she decides in a male-centric manner, supporting the man's side.

Women's rights activists have stated that the prevention of violence against women begins with acceptance of the idea of gender equality -- and believe that the recent legal support for women's rights has not succeeded precisely because it does not stem from this recognition in Turkey.

Zelal Ayman, a coordinator from Women for Women's Rights-New Ways, says the attitudes of Turkey's leaders -- especially of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan -- are especially unsupportive.

“He [Erdoğan] first advocated three children per family and spoke against abortion. Erdoğan considers women to belong to their families instead of themselves.”

In 2011 the Erdoğan government replaced the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs with the Ministry of Family and Social Policy, despite having received more than 3,000 signatures against the change. “We are a conservative democratic party. Family is important to us,” was the explanation. 

Commenting on the subject, Ayman says that during a meeting with representatives of women's organizations in 2010 at which she was present, Turkey's prime minister told participants that he didn't believe in gender equality. 

So Ayman asks: “How can we expect the police and the court to help us eliminate violence against women when they see a lack of women in leadership positions and get the message from authorities that there is no such a thing as gender equality?”Read the full story here.