ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday vowed to enforce stricter legal measures to prevent violence against women following a double femicide last week that shook the nation to its core — even as activists are highlighting the government's failure to enforce existing measures to prevent gender-based violence. 

"Recently, we sadly observed that some murders and tragic incidents have caused our nation to hesitate in feeling safe,” he told his party’s lawmakers in parliament. "From preventing crime to combating crime and criminals, from prosecutions to our penal system, we will address every gap,” Erdogan said, as he pledged legal arrangements that would facilitate the pretrial arrest of individuals with extensive criminal records and increase the penalties for “certain offenses that hurt the conscience of society.”

Erdogan's pledge came in response to the growing outrage in the nation after the killings of two young women. Semih Celik stabbed his friend Aysenur Halil to death on Oct. 4. Then he beheaded his former high school friend Ikbal Uzuner on top of the city wall in Istanbul's Fatih district. In the videos shared on social media by bystanders, Celik is seen throwing Uzuner's head from the wall before jumping off of it, committing suicide.

Hundreds of activists in several provinces of Turkey, including Istanbul, have taken to the streets to protest the government’s lack of action amid the increasing murders of women and girls. According to We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF) — a Turkish organization that tracks gender-related killings — nearly 300 women and girls have been killed this year alone, mostly by family members.