Two 19-year-old women, İkbal Uzuner and Ayşenur Halil, were brutally murdered on Oct. 4, 2024 by 19-year-old Semih Çelik in Istanbul, who then proceeded to commit suicide. Prior to the murder, Çelik had been admitted into psychiatric facilities multiple times in recent years, following a common trend among other femicide perpetrators. However, when it comes to taking precaution on serious matters including violence against women, Turkish legislation fails to implement and enforce laws that keep criminals in jail and protect women from becoming victims to tragedies such as femicide. Change is in the hands of the people, but the Turkish government must listen and respond to the peoples’ pleas for reform by closing the gap between legislation and enforcement.
The event also gave rise to numerous stories similar to Halil and Uzuner, where women had been murdered by their own husbands, fathers, and brothers. So far this year, a total of 320 women were killed as a result of male violence. Women activists and protestors have been demanding for Turkish authorities to take accountability for enabling men’s violent behavior. Under the current system, there are no consequences for the perpetrator’s actions.
The Turkish government should be enforcing existing legislation such as Law No. 6284 which aims to protect families, children, and women from violence and to implement procedures and principles that maintains this protection. In addition, the Council of Europe — of which Turkey is a member state — established the Istanbul Convention to address the human rights issue of gender-based violence against women. The convention created a series of measures including prevention, protection, prosecution, and development of integrated policies to ensure the safety of women from domestic violence and to provide them with tools to ensure their safety if found in an abusive situation.
Despite the implementation of Law No. 6284 and the Istanbul Convention as early as 2012, there have been hundreds of femicides reported since, indicating the Turkish government’s failure to recognize and enforce their own laws. In 2021, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, withdrew from the convention, leaving millions of women more vulnerable and at risk of gender-based violence. By leaving the convention the country slid backwards, establishing a disturbing precedent for the future of women’s rights. Essentially, a gender hierarchy is categorizing women as second-class citizens, as their rights are being blatantly violated by the government.
Under the leadership of the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey was one of the first nations to adopt women’s rights laws. In 1934, women were granted the right to vote, and in the following year, 18 women deputies held positions in the Grand National Assembly. Atatürk gave women equal rights and opportunity in Turkey which allowed women to voice their concern about social issues including violence against women, oppression, etc. The progress Atatürk worked to achieve has tragically been erased by new ideologies coming to power within the Turkish government.
It is crucial for the Turkish government to take initiative through providing support to survivors of violence, ensuring their safety and empowering them to rebuild their lives. This includes rejoining international frameworks such as the Istanbul Convention and providing training for law enforcement to strengthen legislation like Law No. 6284. Authorities should also introduce education campaigns to deconstruct cultural and societal norms that perpetuate gender-based violence. Integrating gender-equality and anti-violence education into the national school system will make the youth more aware of gender-based stereotypes and harmful behavior in a relationship from an early age.
An essential practice to create change for women’s safety in Turkey includes mandatory police training. With this training, the police can have the knowledge and ability to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. Turkey has shown cooperation with policy intended to reform police training through initiatives such as “Training of Trainers on Combating Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women for Law Enforcement.” But as we’ve seen before, authorities have failed to implement policies of such nature today. For this, authorities turn back to these preexisting policies and construct a stable foundation for them to stand on.
This erosion of women’s rights not only undermines the foundational principles established by Atatürk, but also demonstrates a significant challenge to the advancement of equality and democracy in Turkey. It is vital for Turkish authorities to re-embrace these principles to ensure that the progress made is not lost, and that all citizens can enjoy equal rights and opportunities.
The Zeitgeist aims to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
