Turkey ranks with Russia as one of the worst countries in Europe for abuse of women. By the government's admission, five women a day were killed by abusers in the first seven months of 2009. A chilling new report from Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, suggests that the situation is getting worse. It finds that 42% of women over 15 have suffered physical or sexual violence; they are vulnerable even when pregnant. Asli, a 21-year old Kurdish woman, was injected with poison, beaten and raped by her husband and in-laws, and locked in a barn without food or water. She decided to seek help from local prosecutors after her father-in-law burned her arm and declared that “I didn't just get you here for my son, but also for my pleasure.” But the prosecutors never contacted her, and she now fears for her life. Asli's story is all too common.
Turkey's mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party is credited with making unprecedented reforms to protect women since it came to power in 2002. The laws are, however, spottily implemented. Single women, divorcees and wives taken in illegal Islamic marriages are not covered. Police often turn away victims on the grounds that “family unity must be preserved.” Hulya Gulbahar, a feminist lawyer, says that Turkey's overtly pious prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has set the wrong tone. “His diatribes against divorce and calls for women to bear at least three children have made things worse,” she claims. Turkey lags in equality, ranking 126 among 134 countries in the 2010 Global Gender Gap Index. Another study finds that women account for four-fifths of Turkey's 5.7m illiterate people.
