Turkey's official policies fail stopping women murders

Turkey?s official policies and rhetoric not only fail to stop women murders, they indirectly encourage the killings by acquitting the perpetrators, a representative of a women?s NGO claims. ?I would prefer officials stop talking about women,? says Gülsüm Kav, from the ?We Will Stop Women Murders? platform Turkey needs unequivocal political and administrative approaches to stop women murders, yet the government not only fails in endorsing such an unambiguous stance; on the contrary its rhetoric even amounts to acquitting the killers, according to a representative of a women?s NGO. The perpetrators should not benefit from reductions, warns Gülsüm Kav, from ?We Will Stop Women Murders? platform, as the brutal murder of Özgecan Aslan served to underline the fact that perpetrators often get away with reduced sentences.

Tell us about the platform.

It was established in 2010 as a reaction to the way Münevver Karabulut?s murder was being handled. The truth about a young women?s brutal killing was being blurred, and in fact, there were official statements [including from then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an] putting the blame on the family.
 
There were already a lot of cases of women murders and since we were expecting an increasing trend on violence against women, we decided to form the platform and to name it after women murders. The tendency was to name them as ?honor killings,? murders of passion; we wanted to name it directly with what it really is to avoid this tendency of diluting the act. We are helping families in their search for justice, thus following the court cases. We are also trying to raise awareness in the public and act as a pressure group for the necessary legal and administrative changes.

Some claim...