Turkey
Council of Europe Convention calls for hotlines, shelters, medical and forensic services
Hamiyet, a member of Turkey’s Kurdish minority, was a 15-year-old newlywed when her husband began beating her every evening after work. He hit her when she was pregnant with each of their nine children, and he raped her almost nightly. She sought help from the police, but they always sent her back home, more concerned with preserving “family unity” than with her safety.
Shadow NGO Report on Turkey’s Initial Periodic Report to the Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
This Shadow Report aims to draw attention to the discrimination and the human rights violations that women in Turkey face, within the framework of the Initial Review for Turkey under CESCR to take place in May 2011. The following evaluation and demands are based on the shadow report submitted to the U.N. CEDAW Committee in July 2010 by 20 NGOs and 6 NGO platforms.
Under the current Government’s second term (since 2007), there has been little progress in Turkey in terms of the necessary legal and institutional reforms for gender equality.
‘He Loves You, He Beats You': Family Violence in Turkey and Access to Protection
Gaps in Law, Police Response, Put Urgently Needed Help Out of Reach. (Istanbul) May 4, 2011 -- Turkey's flawed family violence protection system leaves women and girls across the country unprotected against domestic abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Life-saving protections, including court-issued protection orders and emergency shelters, are not available for many abuse victims because of gaps in the law and enforcement failures.
Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare (Film)
Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare - A film by Binnue Karaevli
Turkey: Headscarf Continues as Political Issue
ANKARA, Jan 31, 2011 (IPS) - A ruling by an administrative court banning female candidates for academic posts from being veiled during an admission examination has brought the headscarf back to the front of Turkish politics, and reignited tensions between secularist and religious forces.
LGBT Activists in Turkey Launch Ground-Breaking Publication
Speaking in his apartment in a suburb of Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, Solin and his colleague Koya are so scared of being identified that they will not allow even an obscured photograph of themselves to be published. Nor do they want their real names to be known. “People here see homosexuality as a poison - a disease,” says Solin, the ash of his cigarette making a quick, quiet hiss as he taps it into a jar of water.
Iran and Turkey: Mohammad Mostafaei Arrested in Istanbul, Family Detained
The Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women (SKSW Campaign) and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) are seriously concerned about the reported arrest of the wife and brother-in-law of human rights lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei. They were arrested on 24 July 2010 and are being held in the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. His wife, Fereshteh Halimi, called her parents to confirm her arrest and detention.
Her brother, Farhad Halimi, is also believed to be detained there. There are strong indications that their arrest is intended to pressure Mohammad Mostafaei to turn himself in. Mohammad Mostafaei is a leading human rights lawyer who defended Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to death by stoning, and a number of other detainees in Iran.
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Turkey and USA: American therapist calls solidarity of Turkish women ‘remarkable’
“The idea of namus may not, strictly speaking, be a Muslim idea. Usually translated as ‘honor,’ the word namus is actually a word with no direct translation in English.
Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys
Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders
The hole where a 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey.