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Turkish court makes landmark ruling on women’s murders

In a first for Turkey, a court has penalized the state for failing to protect a woman who was killed by her husband.
Women protest against the government and violence against women, a day after International Women's Day in Istanbul March 9, 2014. On March 8 activists around the globe celebrate International Women's Day, which dates back to the beginning of the 20th Century and has been observed by the United Nations since 1975. The UN writes that it is an occasion to commemorate achievements in women's rights and to call for further change. REUTERS/Osman Orsal (TURKEY - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR3GB8T
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Almost on a daily basis, Turkish women perish at the hands of violent husbands. The murders have become a fixture in news bulletins, and security camera footage of husbands stabbing their wives in the streets can be found on the Internet.

Despite their frequency and ferocity, women’s murders are widely perceived as a domestic issue and treated as ordinary homicide. Both politicians and society tend to make no difference between those murders and the many others committed in the streets. But given the alarming number of cases and the killers’ peculiar motives, the murder of women appears to have become a distinct and systematic phenomenon.

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