Women in Turkey are entering 2026 in an atmosphere where rights won through decades of struggle are being eroded by male-dominated state violence. In a country where at least three women are killed every day because of male violence, the coming year is expected to be even more challenging for women.
Feminist activist Feride Eralp, who spoke to ANF, said that despite the scale of attacks, the consciousness of the women’s movement has not been shaken. Eralp said: “2026 will also be a difficult year, but we will not give up the struggle.”
Globally, there is a strategic shift prioritizing the family over women’s rights
Feminist activist Feride Eralp said that women’s rights and the idea of gender equality are facing a global attack, adding that the situation in Turkey is part of this broader trend.
Eralp stated that there is a global campaign centered on the notion of the “family” and said: “In the context of population policies, through debates over aging populations and declining birth rates, there is a widespread promotion of the family. Even at the level of the United Nations, there is a mainstreaming effort that prioritizes the family over women’s rights and allocates funding to familism. In Turkey, as in right-wing governments in the West and across the world, the state pursues policies that define women within the framework of the family, prioritizing the unity of the family as an institution over women’s survival. In this sense, there is a global strategic shift. In the past, certain states were always advocates of this approach at the global level. For example, Iran and the Vatican, the Church, played this role internationally. Today, however, even in many global documents, whether gender equality should be foregrounded has become a contested issue.”
The responsibility for sustaining the system is placed entirely on women
Feride Eralp said that this was not the case in the 1990s and 2000s, adding that Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention should be understood within this broader process. Eralp said: “This was not how things were in the 1990s or 2000s. Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention is part of this trajectory. When Turkey withdrew, it effectively criminalized the very concept of gender equality. In this sense, the right is not only defined by a lack of democracy, neoliberalism, cheaper labor, and increased exploitation of workers. In its current form, it also carries a far more deeply sexist perspective than before. This perspective promotes women having more children, those children, especially in countries like ours, being turned into cheap labor, and the dismantling of all social and public services, which are then outsourced to the family and placed on women’s shoulders. Elderly care is expected to be provided by women at home, unpaid. Childcare is also expected to be carried out by women at home, unpaid. As society grows poorer and more impoverished, the responsibility for sustaining both society and this system is placed entirely on women. This situation is extremely cost-free for capital and states, and at the same time serves the interests of capitalism. It also turns male dominance, patriarchy, into a fundamental organizing principle in shaping both the family and society.”
Patriarchy seeks a family model based on the exploitation of women’s labor and bodies
Feride Eralp said patriarchy seeks to construct a family model in which women are positioned as secondary and their labor and bodies are exploited through reproduction. She said this is not a new phenomenon, recalling that family policies have long been a central issue in countries where the Catholic Church is influential, and that family congresses have even been held in Italy.
Eralp also recalled that the Turkish government declared 2025 the “year of the family” said: “In Turkey, the ‘national and local’ argument is used to justify family policies. While the family is turned into a space where women’s unpaid labor is exploited, where women are subjected to violence, disciplined, and rendered invisible, it is also used to reproduce nationalist values. That is why the ‘national and local’ narrative is employed deliberately and systematically.”
Familism is neither national nor local
Feride Eralp said the ideology of familism is neither national nor local, arguing that it has spread globally through lobbying by the Catholic Church. She said the effects of this approach are now visible in Turkey as well, adding that one of the key reasons for this is the strength of the feminist movement in the country.
Eralp said women in these lands have fought for their rights for many years and that there is a strong feminist movement in Turkey dating back to the pre-Republic period. Eralp also added: “There is a powerful feminist movement in Turkey, and it predates the Republic. Achievements such as the Civil Code, amendments to the Penal Code, the adoption of Law No. 6284, and the signing of the Istanbul Convention are the result of the women’s movement and decades of struggle. Even though feminists have been excluded from decision-making processes since 2012–2013, they have not abandoned the struggle. The fact that alimony rights could not be rolled back, that amnesties for child sexual abuse could not be passed, that legal regulations seeking to criminalize women’s rights were blocked, and that abortion, despite being effectively restricted, could not be fully banned are direct outcomes of this struggle. Thanks to the women’s movement, most women in society, beyond political polarization, now defend rights such as the right to divorce, to live free from violence, and to live equally. The awareness that women deserve equality has become widespread, and this is a gain of organized struggle. This is not something that can be taken away from women by withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention. If you have the awareness that ‘I deserve equality’ and ‘this man cannot treat me this way,’ that awareness was won through the organized struggle waged by women in this country. Although the women’s movement faced numerous attacks in 2025, this fundamental consciousness was not shaken. From this perspective, when we look to the future of women, we say that there is still a life ahead for us to win.”
‘Suspicious death’ has become a concept that conceals male violence
Feminist activist Feride Eralp stated the state is attempting to manipulate data to obscure male violence against women and said: “If you ask the state, it claims, based on the data it publishes, that violence has decreased. But the data is highly manipulable. Femicides are extremely widespread. No one can manipulate that away. This is something that would be revealed through even the most basic media scan. In 2025 alone, more than 200 women were killed by male violence. The number of so-called ‘suspicious’ female deaths is even higher. In fact, femicides are being rendered invisible through the category of ‘suspicious deaths.’ An impression is created as if these were not murders, but perhaps suicides, or cases where the cause of death is unknown. Yet in most of these ‘suspicious’ deaths, we know and see that systematic male violence lies beneath them. The death of Rojin Kabaiş is being presented as a ‘suspicious death.’ The killing of Şule Çet would have been closed as a suicide if there had not been a struggle. The ongoing case of Aslı Baş in Bodrum is also being pushed toward closure as a suicide. ‘Suspicious death’ has become a new concept used to cover up male violence against women. That is why we always say: not a suspicious death, but a femicide.”
Discrediting is fundamentally carried out by humiliating women
Feride Eralp said that in almost every incident, women are the ones who are blamed, pointing to the exposure of television presenters’ private lives during recent operations as an example. Eralp said: “Instead of pursuing the crime itself, a method is followed in which people are discredited through the exposure of their private lives. Discrediting is fundamentally carried out by humiliating women. In other words, even when men are being discredited, women are used. Women become the material of that discrediting process. If a man uses promises of reward, harassment, or his position and authority to subject women to sexual violence or coercion, this is already a matter for the judiciary, it is a crime. But instead of discussing this, we begin to debate the sensational, tabloid aspect of the issue. Powerful, well-established men may also be discredited, but the ones who are discredited the most are the women presenters caught at the center of the issue. Rather than judging the crime, society turns to judging the women. At the same time, we are faced with a government that survives through dark networks of crime. This government occasionally decides to punish certain actors, but not for the crimes they have committed. Instead, it targets them through more sensational issues, such as drugs. Because if the other crimes were examined, the trail would lead back to them, most likely to politicians. In order not to expose the crime regime itself, they settle for reshaping it. Women are turned into the material of this process.”
Eralp also added that the planned verbal attacks directed at Leyla Zana, a symbolic figure, follow the same logic and said: “The deliberate targeting of a symbolic woman from history, bringing her into the present to insult Kurdish woman politician Leyla Zana as part of efforts to disrupt the ongoing process related to the solution of the Kurdish question, is based on the same mentality. Women are constantly being turned into objects and tools of politics. Yet we are the subjects of our own struggle. The way to change this is not to fall into these traps. When faced with attempts to discredit women in this way, we need to stop and ask: by shining all these spotlights on women, what are they trying to distract us from?”
2026 will also be a year when we do not give up the struggle
Feride Eralp said society has been almost entirely shaped by politics over the past decade, adding that constant attacks and shock doctrines have stripped people of their reflexes and turned society into a spectator of the violence inflicted on its own life.
Eralp stated that although struggling dynamics in the social sphere may be weak in certain respects, they have not disappeared. He said: “I think the situation is different for women. In the context of male violence, a much broader and more widespread women’s solidarity is being organized. Unlike unions, women’s organization is not an institutional structure alone. A woman who steps out to stand in solidarity with her neighbor when she hears her voice in the apartment or the neighborhood is also part of that solidarity and organization. In this sense, we deserve not to be pessimistic. In the end, there is a society living under a brutally neoliberal, capitalist, and deeply patriarchal authoritarian regime, a society that has been deprived of the means to determine its own fate and conduct its struggle, has been rendered passive, yet has not given up. At the same time, this is a deeply polarized society. There is also a segment that directs the pain of being crushed under relations of exploitation not at those in power or employers, but at those more vulnerable, punishing migrants and women instead. This mentality needs to change. That is what we are struggling for. The reason the feminist movement advances without leaving anyone behind, by building links with struggles against transphobia, homophobia, racism, and hostility toward migrants, is precisely to explain this. Before raising awareness among others, we are also struggling to ensure that we internalize this perspective. And we will continue to struggle. 2026 will be a difficult year, but we will not give up the struggle. The fields of struggle are endless. The streets are crucial, but the struggle also encompasses homes, workplaces, courthouses, and every area of life, including art and sports. For this reason, 2026 will be a year in which we continue this struggle under difficult conditions.”