The year 2025 that has just ended went on record as a year in which violations of rights and impunity increased for women and children. In a year declared the “Year of the Family” by the government, women’s lives were placed under pressure in every sphere, while judicial rulings and constitutional changes created the grounds for this mindset and for killings.
A report by the Socio-Economic Field Research Center (SAMER), which compiled this year’s data in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) format, clearly reveals the rise in crimes against women. According to the report titled “Review of Violence Against Women Cases Reflected in the Press Between 1 January and 31 December 2025,” 420 women were murdered over the past year, while 508 women died under suspicious circumstances. For the first time compared to previous years, the number of suspicious deaths of women exceeded the number of femicides.
The report recorded that 662 women were subjected to physical violence and injury, 1,089 were forced into prostitution, 130 were harassed, 25 were raped, 96 faced threats and insults, and 170 children were subjected to sexual assault.
Women noted that the findings of the report clearly exposed both judicial practices and the consequences of social norms and said that the rise in suspicious deaths was not a coincidence.
Diyarbakır (Amed) Bar Association Vice President Şilan Çelik said that men were emboldened by impunity and by the policies being pursued to develop new methods, which in turn appeared as “suspicious deaths,” adding that the process had become a multidimensional and systematic field of problems.
Investigations are being left in limbo
Şilan Çelik said, “If we make an assessment based on the data showing an increase in suspicious deaths of women, there are of course many underlying reasons. There are numerous interlinked factors. However, the most fundamental problem is that investigations into the deaths of women are not being conducted effectively. In these files, evidence is generally not collected, crime scene examinations are not carried out on time, and witnesses who may be related to the incident are not heard in a timely manner.”
Çelik stated that these failures led to files being deliberately left unresolved and said: “When we look at the files, we encounter cases in which the perpetrator is not identified, or in which a perpetrator is almost not even created. In this way, the files are left waiting for long periods. The prolonged investigation phase, both because of a lack of willingness to collect evidence and because there is no will clarify the file, causes cases to drag on.”
Çelik said that the lengthening of investigation processes had serious consequences for perpetrators and directly affected the course of the cases. She said: “As cases drag on, perpetrators can destroy evidence, hide, flee, or influence the course of the file in their own favor. For this reason, many cases are recorded as suspicious deaths of women. However, we also see that most of the cases recorded in this way are often not handled with the seriousness they require.”
Çelik said that in a significant number of deaths of women classified as suicides, a man was present as a witness to the incident. She said the judiciary’s approach was decisive in this regard and added that the Diyarbakır Bar Association had a clear position on the issue. Çelik said, “We believe that every death of a woman should be treated as a suspicious death until the material truth is established. Because the climate of impunity created by the judiciary creates serious encouragement, both in these cases and for perpetrators.”
There are stories of violence behind so-called suicides
Şilan Çelik said that the life histories women leave behind must be examined in detail and that this approach was necessary even in files classified as suicides.
Çelik said: “If there really is a suicide, the reasons that pushed the woman to that point must still be investigated. In a large portion of these files, there are multiple forms of violence, systematic violations, and crimes that occurred earlier. Bringing this process to light can also make it possible to identify other crimes.”
Impunity continues both in prosecution and enforcement
Şilan Çelik said that although there were serious legal regulations on paper, major problems existed in practice, and she referred to the Eleventh Judicial Package. She said that people released under this package continued to commit crimes against both women and children and continued: “Our laws do contain penalties in writing. However, the problem lies in how these penalties apply. Either punishment is given to the perpetrator, or reductions are applied to the sentence in a way that protects the perpetrator. In regulations on the enforcement regime, treating crimes against women only under the category of killing is a serious shortcoming. Perpetrators who commit crimes involving violence against women, such as injury, threats, and insults, are able to benefit from enforcement regulations and are released in a short time. This shows that impunity continues at the enforcement stage as well.”
A judicial practice that holds perpetrators accountable must be established
Finally, Şilan Çelik stated that the failure to operate protective and preventive mechanisms left women defenseless and said: “There is a serious gap between the law on paper and the law in real life. Law enforcement often ignores or trivializes women’s complaints. If these mechanisms are not put into operation, it is not possible to prevent violence and suspicious deaths of women. Without a judicial practice that ensures accountabilities for all perpetrators, we cannot speak of a justice system that protects women and children.”