No justice for Turkish women who kill in self-defense
Turkish courts rarely offer leniency to women who have killed their husbands in self-defense, mostly because the women are too ashamed to recount tales of their abuse.
In Turkey, the killing of women has become a major problem. No less than 294 women were killed in 2014, and 60% of them perished at the hands of husbands and boyfriends, according to the We Will Stop Women Homicides Platform.
On the other side of the coin, there are also women who kill their husbands. No statistics exist on the issue, but several research papers are available. One such study, conducted in 2011 among convicted women, was written by myself, Ozlem Albayrak of Ankara University’s faculty of political sciences, and psychologist Alp Ardic. We interviewed 30 women who, jailed for murdering husbands or boyfriends, offered ample insight into the phenomenon. The findings were later published as a book whose title can be roughly translated as “At the End of the Rope.”
All interviewees said they were abused by the men they murdered. Some spoke of physical violence and others of sexual abuse, such as being forced to participate in group sex, prostitute themselves or eat feces. Almost all the murders were spontaneous. In most cases, the women used objects that were available to them at that very moment. They were all married off at a young age, uneducated and unskilled. This pattern suggested that most of them did not view and use violence as an instrument, but were compelled to resort to it as a result of a common socio-economic experience.
To escape the cycle of violence, the women recounted how they first sought refuge with their families. But true to the Turkish saying that a woman “who leaves the family home in a wedding gown returns only in a shroud,” parents would send them back home. Some of the women then tried the police, but would again be sent away, with advice to “kiss and make up.”
