"Beat & Release": A Woman's Place is in the Home - If She Wants to be Murdered

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Milliyet Newspaper, 29 May 2021)

  

                    When in doubt, appoint a commission.

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has presented statistics concerning

murders of women to the Turkish Parliament's Research Commission

for Determining the Causes of Violence Against Women.  In his 

presentation, Soylu said that "in incidents of violence committed 

within the family and against women, the murder victim is closely

related to the suspect." 

In this regard, 39% of the murderers are husbands, 19% are boyfriends,

15% are other family members, 13% are grandparents (!), 8% are

ex-husbands, 4% are common-law husbands and 2% are ex-boyfriends.

70% of the murders occur in the home (!), 15% on the street, 11% in 

parks and forests, 3% in vehicles and 1% in hotels. 

As for the reasons for the murders, 33% are the result of arguments -

17% of which concern jealousy, followed by refusal to reconcile and

narcotics use.  The number of murders that occur for unknown reasons

is 15%.  Other pretexts are a woman's desire to break up, psychological

causes, suspicion of infidelity and economic problems.  67% of the 

murders happen spontaneously and 33% are planned. 

In 88% of the murders of women, there is a restraining order in place. (!)

57% of the murder victims are married, 24% are divorced and 19%

are single women.  

According to the Interior Ministry's statistics, the number of murders of

women is declining (!):

2014 - 307

2015 - 360

2016 - 304

2017 - 353

2018 - 276

2019 - 336

2020 - 267

2021 (first four months) 95

Minister Soylu took note of the decline since 2014, declaring "it should

get to zero and that's our goal.  But there is no upward trend in murders

of women.  Of course, each one is a problem and I take responsibility for

every one of them."

            Intensity of violence against women by region.