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May 16, 2005
Turks to Fight 'Honor Killings' of Women
By SEBNEM ARSU
ISTANBUL, May 15 - In a nondescript building in a remote part of Istanbul, a young woman sat in front of a television
on a recent day watching a chilling scene unfold. Panning across the dank walls of a cave, the camera stopped on a primitive
drawing of a female form, then dissolved into a modern crime scene showing the chalk outline of a woman's body on a road.
"Every year, dozens of women fall victim," said the menacing voice of Atilla Olgac, an actor who plays the most
fearsome character on Turkey's most popular television drama. "Don't be a part of this shame; don't turn a blind eye
to murders committed in the name of honor."
The video is part of a nationwide campaign in Turkey to bring an end to so-called honor killings, in which a woman is
killed by her husband or a male relative for behavior that is perceived as a slight to the dignity and respectability of her
family. Rights organizations in Turkey and abroad have long denounced the practice as brutal and unfair to women; men who
engage in the same activities are not held accountable.
The 24-year-old woman was watching a preview of the television spot with officials from a women's shelter.
She had been staying there for three days, the latest stop in a series of moves intended to keep her at a safe distance
from a family that had decided she must return to her abusive husband, or die.
Identified by shelter officials only as Nazan, she was married against her will when she was 15 and is now the mother
of three children.
Nazan said she fled her home after years of physical abuse and returned to her family declaring that she wanted a divorce.
She begged to stay with her father for safety, but she said he considered her actions an affront to the family honor, and
in an effort to force her back to her husband became abusive himself, leaving knife scars on her arms, legs and back.
According to official records, 43 women in Turkey were victims of honor killings in 2004. But human rights activists say
the number is far greater than that, with families reporting deaths as suicides or simply filing missing persons reports.
"Women's groups have been active in raising consciousness to prevent honor killings in the past few years but what
they needed was a national campaign to support their work," said Nilufer Narli, a sociologist from Kadir Has University
in Istanbul.
She praised the campaign, which also includes billboards and fliers. "Panels and conferences reach the elite, but
you need television and movies to reach people in the street."
The promotional television spots are scheduled to be broadcast on donated time on at least 10 television stations and
hundreds of radio stations nationally starting this week.
Honor killings are most common in the country's rural southeast, and among poorer and less educated Turks.
In Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region, there are no shelters, despite efforts by local groups.
"Women are deeply hesitant to come to us," said Reyhan Yalcindag, deputy director of the Diyarbakir Human Rights
Association. "Even if they had the courage to file an official complaint, they still must go back to the home where they
are targets, and live among the very people they have made charges against."
"There are only 14 shelters in Turkey, and none in the southeast," she said. "These are not acceptable
figures." The media campaign in Turkey is the first combined effort on the issue of honor killings involving both governmental
and nongovernmental organizations, as well as clerics, and it is being financed by a grant from the British Foreign and Commonwealth
Office.
At the same time Turkey, in hopes of being granted entry into the European Union, is working to bring its human rights
standards in line with those of the West and to modernize its criminal justice system.
A new penal code, ratified in September 2004, eliminated "protection of family honor" as a mitigating circumstance
in murder trials and introduced heavier penalties for honor killing convictions. Another law recently passed by Parliament
calls for the creation of a women's shelter in every large municipality in the country.
But some critics say the changes are not enough. Despite the removal of the family honor provision, the commission making
the legal changes left a loophole in the law, preserving "unjust provocation" as an available defense that could
be invoked in honor killing cases.
And while Ms. Yalcindag welcomed the potential addition of hundreds of new shelters, she said she was skeptical about
the support they would get. "Cities will be obliged to build more shelters, but it is the responsibility of the central
government to ensure their security," she said, "and there has been no promise made on that."
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