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http://www.dw.com/en/domestic-violence-in-turkey-reaches-boiling-point/a-18576377
Turkey – Domestic Violence Reaches Boiling Point
A series of violent attacks against women in
Turkey has put the entire country on edge - with little hope for change. Could
one woman's act of defiance begin to challenge an established culture of
patriarchy?
Protests were
held after the violent murder of Ozgecan Aslan across Turkey earlier in 2015
By Sertan
Sanderson – 7/11/2015
Turkish
authorities arrested a 28-year-old woman in the southeastern city of Adana
earlier this week after her uncommon crime sparked a great deal of public
interest - and even some admiration.
Cilem Karabulut
turned herself in to the police and admitted to killing her husband, Hasan,
aged 33, with his handgun. But Karabulut insisted that she was defending her
"honor;" the husband had allegedly beaten, drugged and abused her.
Furthermore, Karabulut claimed that he had also tried to force her into
prostitution.
Soon the
Turkish press descended on Adana and focused Karabulut's defiant attitude
toward the crime. "It shouldn't only be women who do all of the dying
here. It's time for men to do some dying, too," she said in regards to the
escalating violence against women in the country.
Honor killings
- no longer for men only
Karabulut set a
precedent when she defended the murder by referring to the importance of her
honor, as so-called "honor killings" had so far been considered
reserved only for men murdering women. Leyla Kaya, the women's commissioner for
the Association for Human Rights (IHD), described Karabulut's act as
"quite unusual."
"To be
honest, it’s rare that you come across a story like this in Turkey," she
said. "But remember that more than 150 women have been killed by their
husbands, fathers or brothers so far this year alone. Cilem Karabulut could
have easily been another number in that statistic. She acted first and killed
her husband instead."
No real
safeguards to protect women
Kaya explained
that she was no stranger to such tragic cases, detailing how she would spend
days on end glued to courtroom doors in Turkey because several judges would no
longer allow her association to document the trials.
President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has openly admitted that he finds it 'unnatural' to consider men
and women equal
"They’ve
barred us from the courts because they don't want to hear the truth about the
fact that the government provides no real mechanism to stop violence against
women," she said. "As an association, we demand the highest possible
conviction in these cases and what do we get? Murderers walk off scot-free.
They are literally roaming among us. What kind of future do we have to look
forward to under these circumstances?"
Other feminists
regard the future as similarly bleak. Arzu Toker, a journalist and writer in Germany
who co-founded an association for people who have renounced Islam, said the
growing influence of extremist movements in her native Turkey has left many
women little choice but to accept the subservient role they are given.
"I'm not
at all surprised that these women are beginning to fight back now," Toker
told DW. "Violence creates further violence. If anything, I would expect
to see more of this sort of thing in the future."
The case of
Ozgecan Aslan
Many in Turkey
are indeed starting to take matters into their own hands - albeit in less
violent ways than Karabulut. Many women and men have taken to the
street together since the February murder of Ozgecan Aslan, a
university student who was killed during an attempted rape.
Some men even
donned skirts in public demonstrations to show their solidarity with women.
Championed by opposition parties, an online petition for a bill designed to
curb violence against women managed to attract over a million signatures. It is
to be named after Aslan.
But the courage
Aslan's parents showed by stepping forward and exposing all details of the
crime committed against their daughter is rare, Toker said.
"There are
countless cases like Ozgecan's, where the family decides to hide all of the
evidence instead because rape goes against their honor," she said,
emphasizing that individual cases like Aslan and Karabulut's would not slow
rampant violence against women in Turkey.
"Just look
at the statistics. They speak for themselves. More women are killed today than
ten years ago, or even five years ago," Toker said.
Kaya of the
Association for Human Rights agreed that she had not witnessed any improvement
to the plight of Turkish women.
"Women are
still treated as invisible or as second-class citizens at best - being a woman
is a never-ending struggle in Turkey," she said. "Even when all we do
is to stay at home quietly raising our children we are part of that struggle.
If we turn that inner struggle to the fore, like with all of these protests, we
begin to see some level of success."
Whether
Karabulut's case can contribute to changing attitudes in Turkey remains to be
seen. For her part, Karabulut seems ready for whatever the future might hold.
Giving the thumbs up to photographers as she was being accompanied to jail, she
proudly displayed a T-shirt that read, "Dear Past, thanks for all the
lessons. Dear Future, I am ready."