Victims of Violence

Human. Everything is about a human. Morality and freedom. Crime and punishment. All grow inside the human soul. Time flew, and humanity gave roles to one another. Men were the breadwinners, while women were the mothers of their kids. Men would conquer. Would like to conquer his woman and his house and his kids. But violence did not seem to take place itself until women stood out and shouted for their rights. But after changes done by them, violence took the lead. This is the topic I would like to discuss today while investigating domestic violence and its progress and challenges.

There are several topics that we should examine. Let’s see.

1)Gaps in the Data

In Turkey, there is a wide literature about femicide and stats along with that. Every year, certain surveys are implemented on women to take information about domestic violence, and femicide cases are analyzed in order to determine the ratio. But the data is not reliable. Due to lack of reports done by women to the police about the violence they have been exposed to. Furthermore, the data collected about femicide does not have order and consistency. The problem directly refers to the Ministry of Internal Affairs or Ministry of Family and Social Services in Turkey since they do not publish stable data. Because of that, TURKSTAT does not provide any data. Related ministries publish femicide data through their statements(done by term by term) or responses to parliamentary questions. But these are generally controversial. For instance, in 2019, during the Violence Against Women Monitoring Committee Meeting, it was declared that in 2016 in Turkey, there were 304, in 2017 353, in 2018, 2019 299 women were killed. On the contrary, KCDP(Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu/We Will Stop Femicide) had stated that in 2016, 328; in 2017, 409; and in 2018, 440 women were killed. Another factor of non-reported cases is the threats: Some women are threatened with murder if they go to police and tell them the whole story by their husband/bf/family. But we can give this example: “The Purple Roof Foundation (1997) conducted a survey of 1.259 women between 1990 and 1996 to analyze statistics on violence. They reported that 88 percent of women are living in a hostile environment and 68 percent were subjected to violence when the broader definition is used. In addition, the study on family violence against women determined that 48 percent of women are subjected to physical violence. The prevalence of emotional violence is 39 percent, economic 35 percent, sexual 41 percent, verbal 27 percent and divorce threats 19 percent (DGWS, 2009).”This is the most proper data that we can reach right now.

2)Cultural Factors

The taboos in Turkish culture are based on men’s power and women’s fertility. Men are considered as the breadwinner and the one that enhances and provides power and pride. On the contrary, women are only seen as a “holy mother of nature” and only are responsible for looking after “her husband’s kids”, cooking, doing the chores etc. Since men are that powerful he can treat “his” women the way he wants, with violence and without mercy, with hyper-aggression to women. Men are imposed by this idea since their childhood and then become reckless. “A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”(Faust, Goethe).

3)Communication Breakdown

The economic problems often times extend beyond money. The economic stress can ruin

the family dynamics since the biggest problem going on is hunger rather than partner communication. Men exaggerate his roles in society ,since the level of unemployment is getting higher everyday and women become more and more passive to working, thus it leads to being violent and dominant on women. Moreover, this results in uneasiness within the family which later turns into chaos and socio-economic depression,directly affecting individual's mood.

These were some major topics that caused women’s role in society to be seen only as an object and not a human, a gender to respect. To gather more tangible data, I would like to share some surveys.

Survey A: The problem is mostly men caused. But among our gender we see that women themselves interpret their acts not as a mistake but something that they should be punished for. “In a study conducted by Yılmaz Esmer and his students in 1991, in which they surveyed a representative sample of 572 women in Istanbul, nearly half of the women responded “Yes” to the question, “Do you think there are situations in which a woman deserves to be beaten by her husband?”(Esmer 1993, 116) In a non-representative sample conducted in Ankara in 1993-94, Leyla Gülçür interviewed 155 women and got a similar result; 43% of women always, often, or sometimes thought violence was “justified” (Gülçür 1996, 49).”(Altınay, Arat 2009)

Survey B: Why do men act violently towards women? Domestic violence is generally practiced on women by men. But we cannot find an acceptable reason. This survey explains the reasons told by violence-victims.. “Why do you think men act violently towards or beat their wives? While some responses to this open ended question stressed factors such as

disobedience (13%)10, economic difficulties (14%), marital conflict (6%),

and psychological problems (9%), some stated very different reasons, saying

that men beat women “out of weakness or powerlessness” (13%), that they

practice violence because they consider themselves to be superior (10%), or

that they use violence as a means “to gain superiority” (4%).”(Altınay,Arat 2009)

Survey C: Women staying silent for one another. If we stay silent to violence to other women and also being a woman, then we cannot prevent any further violence caused by men. First of all, we have to respect our gender and show solidarity. ““What would you do, how would you react if your spouse were to beat you today?” and “What would you do if you heard your neighbor being beaten by her spouse?” “If your spouse were to beat your today, what

would you do, how would you react?”, 24% of women said that they would

do or could do nothing for various reasons. The same figure for the East sample is even higher, at 46% (Table 34). The percentage of women who said that

they would or could do nothing if their neighbors were to be beaten by their

spouses were 45% (for the East, it was 51%). While 5% of women

said that they would go to the police if they were to be beaten themselves, the

percentage of women in the Turkey sample who said that they would call the

police if their neighbor were to be beaten was 13%." (Altınay,Arat 2009)

I would like to end this survey reading with a quote; “Women trapped in violent relationships need to know that there is no shame talking out and walking out on their abusive partners.”

(Kate Thornton)

To conclude the topic, we are human and have the intelligence to argue and discuss problems in relationships or anything. Because men have more physical power compared to women does not make them have a right to be dominant in everything. Believe in something or not but we have been given a brain and a heart by someone. Not a machine in our heads to take our aggression out.

Bibliography

RIGHTS MADE SIMPLE

Victims of Violence

Son Yazılar

Comments