Violence against women
By
Beril Dedeoglu
February 17, 2015
As in many other parts of the world, women in Turkey
face a number of very serious problems. One should maybe say that there is a
"man problem" instead of "women's problems" in Turkey, as
in most cases it is men who kill, rape or harass, while women are the victims.
The number of crimes committed against women is very
important, but two incidents in particular drew much attention last week. The
first was the case of a woman stabbed in the neck by her husband in the middle
of a street. She called for help, but nobody dared to come to her aid. The
street was full of passersby and there were also people watching from their
windows, but no one intervened except a young man. The latter managed to
apprehend the husband and save the woman's life, becoming a "hero.” What
he did was indeed heroic, but what was shocking was the presence of so many
people who witnessed the horrendous scene but did literally nothing.
Maybe these careless people were simply afraid of
being attacked by that man. But maybe, and most probably, they thought it was a
quarrel between a husband and a wife, so they mustn't intervene. There is a
deep-rooted culture in the country that indoctrinates women with the idea that
their husbands have limitless power over them. By the way, I'm pretty sure
there were also people there who have thought slyly about what the woman had
done to "deserve" this, but chose to remain silent.
It is very rare in Turkey for people to consider women
as independent individuals. A woman is always described in connection with a
man: She is a daughter, a sister, a wife or a mother. She is rarely accepted as
a "complete" person. She is not supposed to live alone, to travel alone,
to go out and have fun at night, to run her own business or to have a
successful life all on her own merit. Every time she tries to prove her
independence, there are people who harass her to remind her of her true place
in society. When women decide to divorce or get close to a promotion, they are
promptly attacked because of their womanhood.
The gruesome murder of a young student was the second
incident that traumatized the entire country last week. It is perhaps good news
that this time, people have strongly expressed their reaction and protests were
held in a number of cities spontaneously. However, the protesters were mostly
women, and unfortunately there are still people who have questioned the
victim's "errors" on social media -- for example, by asking what she
was doing alone at that time in the streets.
Violence against women will not disappear as a result
of only women's reactions. Men also have to question themselves and start
discussing it in order to make progress. Some people suggest that cases of
violence against women are growing in number, even though it is not certain.
The figures are higher compared to previous years, maybe because women report
these incidents more than in the past. What remains unchanged compared to the
past is that society doesn't believe the criminals are being punished
correctly.
Every single woman in Turkey is at risk. Some of them
are being harassed or threatened daily, sometimes by the very people they know
or work with. It is of course impossible to hire bodyguards for every woman, so
the best solution is to increase social pressure so that men don't dare to
harass women. Political decisions are needed as well to weaken patriarchal
social relationships. NGOs have to develop common projects on this, too.
Truthfully, there is not much reason to hope for a
positive change in the near future, because the collective conscience about
violence against women is still not satisfactory and the state has only very
recently started to work on that.
Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/beril-dedeoglu/violence-against-women_372888.html
URL: http://newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/beril-dedeoglu/violence-against-women/d/101607