Adana | As long as impunity persists, so does male violence

* Photo: Evrim Kepenek - bianet

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According to bianet March 2022 Male Violence Monitoring Report, men killed two women and inflicted bodily harm on at least 10 women. Lawyer Sevil Aracı from Adana Women's Platform and Ekmek ve Gül (Bread and Rose) Adana Group writes on rising male violence in Adana.

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We have seen that Adana strikingly leads in the March 2022 report on violence against women. We have been observing that there has recently been an increase in the news of feminicides in Adana.

It is frustrating that we are on the books as a province where more than one woman were killed in the same month.

While we do not have a definite answer as to what factors lead to the distribution of violence among provinces, we can make educated guesses based on the stories of violence that we hear from the women whom we come into contact with as the Adana Women's Platform.

We think that though the practices are not essentially any different, Adana is one of the places marked by a significant amount of insensitivity, lack of measures and imprudence when it comes to the issue of violence against women and we are not surprised by the results.

Why?

For instance, right after Turkey withdrew from the İstanbul Convention, Adana was the province which saw the most news about women who were told, "We cannot receive applications for restraining orders at police stations. You should go to a family court or to a prosecutor's office".

At that time, it was really hard to convince the officers that the Law no. 6284 on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence Against Women was still in force or no evidence was necessary for a protection order.

Why?

Just a few weeks ago, it was once again Adana that made the news about the torture inflicted on people on the street because they wanted to protest. In fact, a senior officer such as the Security Department Head was filmed while inflicting violence. Imagine what we can expect from a security organization headed by these officers to prevent violence against women.

Immediate measures

We, women, have long been tirelessly explaining what needs to be done to prevent violence against women or feminicides.

We launch campaigns about our demands for immediate measures, we offer our requests as concrete recommendations one by one; we express them with our protests and slogans on every occasion so that authorities hear them. However, none of the concrete recommendations offered by women is not put into effect, none of the measures to be taken is taken.

On the contrary, the İstanbul Convention, one of our biggest weapons to prevent violence, can be abolished with a single man's midnight decree.

In order to stop violence against women, the policies of impunity must be ended first. Deterring penalties must be imposed and they must not be mitigated by good conduct time or unjust provocation.

Implementing the restraining and protection orders as required, inspecting them and taking the applications of women under the threat of violence seriously are as important as the deterrence of penalties.

But, perhaps, the most important measure to take is to ensure that the problems with housing and livelihood of women subjected to violence or facing such a risk are solved by the state and they are provided with places where they can stay safely and at ease. In case they are not solved by the state, it will be a dream to expect that women are protected from violence.

We, as women, know that a world without violence can be built thanks to women's struggle and solidarity and we will carry on with our struggle that we wage to ensure that this world will not only remain as a dream until we erase all marks of violence from the earth.

Long live women's solidarity.

(SA/EMK/SD)