The Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights issued a report entitled “Racist Policies: Escalating Violence Against Women in Turkey”, which deals with the high rates of violence that have doubled with the spread of the Corona epidemic.
The report attributed this matter to the escalation of the Turkish government’s negative media discourse towards women, as well as the practices of the security services and judicial institutions from the Public Prosecution Office and judges, which contributed to overlook the problem and the increase in crimes of violence against women, especially domestic violence.
The report confirmed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech on equality between women and men, in which he considered that women are not equal with men, has contributed to the increase of violent crimes against women by deepening the prevailing stereotypes against women and the negative perception of their role in society.
The report stated that Turkey ranks 130th out of 153 countries in the gender equality index for the year 2020, not to mention the low rates of wages and education rates compared to men, which contributed mainly to the increase in the rates of violence against women in society.
The report stated that 1,015,337 incidents of violence against women occurred between 2014 and 2019, which led to the death of 1,890 women, in addition to the death of 94 under the protection system, according to data from the Turkish Ministry of Interior.
While civil society organizations monitored twice this number of deaths among women, as a result of violence practiced against them, as 2,248 deaths were recorded during the same period.