Hundreds of women have taken to the streets in Turkey to demand an end to femicide, forcing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to pledge to strengthen criminal law on violence against women. More than 300 women have been murdered this year in Turkey.
“You are a government that lets young girls get killed,”
The protests started after the double killing of two 19 year old women in Istanbul last week. İkbal Uzuner was beheaded in front of her mother following which Aysenur Halil was killed by having her throat slit. These killings happened within 30 minutes of each other.
This closely followed the murder of a 26 year old policewomen in September.
Protestors are demanding more action from the government to stop the unfolding femicide epidemic in Turkey.
“You are a government that lets young girls get killed,” a rally organiser, Gunes Fadime Aksahin said, reported by the new Arab.
Erdogan’s first response was to blame drugs and alcohol but following public outrage he and his party gave the statement: “A series of recent events, from the martyrdom of a policewoman to the brutal murder of our young women, have provoked a justified reaction within our nation.
“It bothers us, as it does everyone else, to see criminal types with dozens of cases on their criminal records, walking around freely,”
However, in 2021 the government withdrew from the Istanbul convention which was designed to combat violence against women. Erdogan claimed this was on the grounds of some of the clauses being harmful to traditional family life.
Following on from this, an Ankara court banned to use of direct messaging on discord which is believed to be encouraging and cheering on the femicides.