Seven women in Turkey ‘savagely killed’ by current or ex-spouses in single day | Turkey

Seven women were killed by their partners or ex-partners across Turkey on Tuesday, according to the television station Habertürk.

“In total, seven women were savagely killed in İzmir, Bursa, Sakarya, Erzurum, Denizli and Istanbul,” Habertürk reported, listing the country’s major cities.

“The suspects were either their current spouses, or spouses from whom they were separated,” said the broadcaster, which listed the names of the victims with their photographs on its website.

The women, aged between 32 and 49, were shot or stabbed to death. At least three of the assailants took their own lives, two were arrested and one who was wounded while being detained later died.

The fate of the seventh, who had escaped prison to kill his wife, remains unclear.

In 2023, the women’s rights NGO We Will Stop Femicide recorded 315 murders of women, 65% of whom were killed in their own homes.

An additional 248 cases of “suspicious deaths”, described as “suicide” by authorities, have been attributed to a third party by feminist groups, which note the rise of defenestration incidents in Turkey.

The country withdrew in 2021 from the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence which requires authorities to investigate and punish violence against women.

“In 15 years, the only year when the number of femicides decreased was in 2011, the year which the Istanbul Convention was adopted,” the NGO said.

A lawsuit filed against We Will Stop Femicide by the Istanbul prosecutor in 2022 over alleged “immoral activities” was dropped last September.