Turkey - Women geared up for March 8 protests but anxious

Turkey's women's movement once again will mark March 8, International Women's Day, with protests and calls on the government to stop violence against women, but while doing it, they hope to be protected from the violence of the state, because they say that whenever they have been on the streets to call for women's rights, they have been subjected to violence from the police.

“We have been calling everybody onto the streets on March 8, but we are also uneasy about it. Our calls are innocent, but we are worried how the government will take it. We are worried that they can use the provisions of the new security package on us,” said Canan Güllü, president of the Federation of Turkey's Women's Associations (TKDF).

Güllü was referring to the highly controversial “security package,” a bill currently being pushed through Parliament by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. Many civil society groups have expressed concern that they have not been included in the process of preparing the bill, which will be a severe blow to democracy and human rights.

“However, we will be on the streets to call for an end to violence against women, against men's murders of women and against the state's violence against people,” she said.

Activists have indicated that if the bill is passed in Parliament, it will pose a threat to everyone in society, but especially to more vulnerable groups: women, children and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.

One of the bill's provisions is “preventive detention,” allowing police to detain people even before a crime occurs, and police can search any person, his or her car, and home without a search warrant.

The bill also places flammable and vaporized gases in the category of firearms. İlknur Üstün, founding member of the Women's Coalition based in Ankara, explained why it will hurt women most: “As you know, many women carry pepper spray in their handbags to protect themselves from violence. What if they are caught with pepper spray? They might face detention and imprisonment.
"Government spokespersons defend the bill by asking why anybody would carry pepper spray while at a demonstration. And we say that no one is beamed up to a demonstration; you leave home and you have to walk and use public transportation. Who guarantees your protection while you are on the street? You might be just a passerby during a demonstration and have a pepper spray in your handbag, too!”

 

‘Men who murder women deserve life sentences'

For the past five years, on March 8 the women's movement in Turkey has been demonstrating against either violence against women or the murders of women.

This year, without official figures, they rely on their own tallies, either by monitoring the media or looking at the court records. Between 2002 and 2009, murders of women in Turkey increased by 1,400 percent, according to figures released at that time by the Ministry of Justice. Since 2009, the AK Party government has not provided the public with official figures on how many women have been killed by men.

We Will Stop Women Homicides Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu) notes that 16 women were murdered last month and almost 300 women were murdered in 2014.

“Femicide and violence against women, again, are at the top of our agenda. And the recent, brutal murder of Özgecan reminded all that we need to repeat our call to go onto the streets [on March 8],” said Gülsüm Kav from the platform.

The woman she referred to was Özgecan Aslan, a 20-year-old student who was brutally murdered while returning home from college in the southern province of Mersin. The minibus driver was accused of taking her into the woods, trying to rape her, and when she resisted, he allegedly beat her with an iron bar and stabbed her. When her body was found, she was burned and her hands were cut off, apparently to eliminate the DNA evidence.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back for activists. Outraged, they held rallies across Turkey to protest violence against women; people wore black to mourn her death; and a group of men in İstanbul donned miniskirts to support women. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to ensure that the killers receive “the heaviest penalty.”

That's what women's organizations have been calling for -- for years: the heaviest penalties for men who murder women.

“We demand that the practice of reduced sentences for men who murder women come to an end. We have long been demanding that Parliament pass a bill requiring life sentences for men who kill women,” Kav said.

Another one of their demands is that the government adequately enforce a law passed in March 2012 (No. 6284) in accordance with the İstanbul Declaration, a Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the İstanbul Convention, which Turkey was the first country to sign in 2011.

Last year, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report titled "Violence Monitoring and Indicators Guide" revealed statistics on violence faced by women and children in Turkey.

The report stated that 37 percent of female victims of male violence are under the age of 18 and 39 percent of violence committed by men against women occurs at the hands of husbands of the victims.

“Courts are on the side of men when handling domestic violence against women, and this attitude has encouraged further violence. Authorities have been minimizing the importance of complaints of violence against women. There are even cases that women have been pushed for retraction of their complaints,” Kav added.

 ‘Top officials intimidate women by their words'

Besides violence and homicide, there are many other problems that women face -- from access to health services to education and low percentages of participation in politics.

Berrin Sönmez, former president and current member of the Capital Women's Platform (Başkent Kadın Platformu), said violence is indeed both a problem and a result of women's many other problems.

“In our society, women have been perceived through traditional religious references. Although Islam gives women a lot of power and equality, it has not been practiced. We have a patriarchal culture that is against women's freedom,” she said.

She also said that sexist remarks by some Islamic clerics have an influence in the society. One of the most recent examples was when Nurettin Yıldız, president of the Social Fabric Foundation (Sosyal Doku Vakfı) said publicly that “6-year-old girls can be married.” His words did not receive harsh public criticism by the government.

Besides the fact that some men claim they know how to interpret Islam when it comes to women, even top-level politicians have used discriminatory language against women.

One example concerns Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, who expressed remarks against women laughing loudly and disapproved of women talking on mobile phones.

“With this statement he intimidated women and gave men the right to meddle into women's lives,” said lawyer and activist Hülya Gülbahar.

Sönmez pointed out that the İstanbul Declaration has clear statements about the issue, saying that it is the obligation of the state to fully address violence against women in all its forms and to take measures to prevent violence against women, protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators.

“Failure to do so would make it the responsibility of the state,” she said, adding that sexual crimes occur all over the world, but the difference occurs when it comes to how women are treated when a legal process starts -- if it really starts.

“In societies where gender equality has been achieved, perpetrators have been harshly punished. In Turkey, women have been victimized again and again, and perpetrators get away with reduced sentences,” she said.

Rights defenders say there are many ways to reduce violence against women: lift women out of poverty; empower them to be full and equal members of society; have girls stay in school longer; have decent job opportunities available to them after they graduate; and break the cycle of early marriage and childbirth.

Although there are no official figures released by the government regarding how many murders of women occurred in 2009-2014, a preliminary report of the government based on research from Hacettepe University indicates that the rate of marriages for women under 18 years old has been 28 percent.

‘Gov't statements influence attitudes of health professionals'

Gender equality has a number of components, and reproduction is one of the key issues. One issue of particular importance is allowing women to decide if, when and how often they become pregnant. Not allowing women to decide on the issue leads to more deaths in childbirth, more deaths of women during abortions in unhealthy conditions and more infant deaths.

Hospitals are authorized in Turkey to perform abortions until the 10th week of pregnancies. The procedure is free of charge in state hospitals. Women's rights activists say that even though abortion is legal, women's right to abortion has been prevented in practice, especially in recent years.

According to activists, this is largely due to the fact that former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has compared abortion to murder, advised new couples to have at least three children and warned that Turkey's population faces a threat of decline.

Moreover, his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) proposed a draft law in 2012 to introduce the right for doctors to refuse to perform an abortion on the grounds of their “conscience” and a mandatory “consideration time” for women requesting a termination. The bill was dropped, but the attitude of health professionals has changed.

“Women cannot get information from state hospitals on abortions and they are not given appointments; because doctors are state appointed public servants, they are afraid of getting some form of penalty by the government if they approve abortions,” said activist and lawyer Yasemin Öz.

Mor Çatı (Purple Roof Women's Shelter Foundation) made a press statement last month following its investigation in 37 state hospitals. They were not able to reach the obstetrics and gynecology departments of two hospitals at all, and three hospitals told them that they cannot give information on the phone regarding whether or not they can perform abortions.

Mor Çatı's research also found that 17 hospitals offered abortions only for cases of medical emergency; 12 hospitals do not perform abortions; and three hospitals said they do perform abortions on demand.

When asked by Mor Çatı why they cannot perform abortions except in medical emergencies, officials from two hospitals said abortions are “banned” because the “state” said so.