In Turkey, dozens of women have lost their lives due to male violence in just the past two weeks. After six women were murdered in a single day in Istanbul, the wave of violence against women has continued to escalate.
The long-standing femicide crisis has shown a serious increase over the past month. Just a few days after two women were murdered in Istanbul, two more women were killed by men. One of the perpetrators had previously told the woman he murdered: “If I kill you, I’ll only serve a few months and then get out.” This statement has been seen as proof that the ongoing massacre has effectively become a state policy.
Lawyer Esin Izel Uysal from the We Will Stop Femicide Platform spoke to ANF about the causes of violence against women and the recent rise in such crimes.
Statements by those in power encourage perpetrators
Pointing out that women are murdered for all kinds of reasons, Esin Izel Uysal continued: “In situations like this, it becomes much easier to see and understand the kind of rupture that causes such developments. For example, the first case that comes to my mind is Ayşe Gülterzi. She was assaulted in the middle of the street because of her clothing, and shortly afterward, similar incidents increased significantly. At that time, the prime minister had made statements suggesting that it was not appropriate for women to dress however they wanted in public. Such statements can embolden perpetrators.”
The government is normalizing violence
Esin Uysal stated that the government’s policies normalize violence: “For the past two years—especially since 2024—policies aimed at excluding women from the public sphere have come to the forefront. Proposed amendments to the Civil Code, the political climate after the elections, and the declaration of 2025 as the ‘Year of the Family’ are all continuations of this policy. The process has unfolded in this way.
Of course, these statements do not openly say that femicides are normal. But such policies indirectly answer the question of how and where women and men should exist in the public sphere. That answer implies that women belong in the home while the public sphere belongs to men.”
Uysal also stated that they are fighting to make femicides visible in society and to show that this is a political issue: “We have been trying for years to explain femicides to society. But understanding this, developing social reflexes, and organizing around it does not happen overnight. Still, in about ten years, society has begun to learn what femicides are and how they can be stopped.
There is a contradiction here. On the one hand, the AKP sometimes openly and sometimes indirectly feeds misogynistic discourse and policies of impunity. On the other hand, we try to develop policies on how to resist these attacks. We emphasize that women’s right to make decisions about their own lives is a fundamental human right, that the constitution applies to everyone, and that society must be based on equal citizenship.”
Political actors cannot avoid responsibility
Esin Izel Uysal emphasized that political actors must not avoid responsibility and must develop responses to the government’s policies: “A political actor cannot avoid their duty. We must have the ambition to develop policies and propose alternatives to every move. Otherwise, we confine ourselves to believing that society cannot change and that the inequalities women experience are fate. If we think this way, it will be impossible to stop femicides or to speak about genuine equality.”
Leave a Reply