REPORT FROM MIGRATION MONITORING ASSOCIATION

What did Woman Experience During Period of Curfews?

In the report, interviews with 480 women who experienced the conflict and curfews in southeastern provinces in 2015 and 2016 shed light on the violations women were subjected to.

Evrim Kepenek

What did Woman Experience During Period of Curfews?

Click to read the article in Turkish (1) (2)

The Migration Monitoring Association has released a report with the aim of revealing what women experienced during the curfews in the period of conflict in southeastern provinces in 2015 and 2016.

The report, which is titled "Rights Violations and Experiences Women Lived Through During the Period of Curfews and Forced Migration," gives the following information regarding period of curfews in its introduction:

Around 500 thousand people were displaced, 1,8 million people were indirectly affected.

At least 299 curfews were declared in 11 provinces and 49 districts between August 16, 2015 and March 1, 2018. The first curfew was issued for Varto, Muş on August 16, 2015.

According to estimated figures, at least 3,638 people died because of conflict. Although the curfews continued to be declared in 2018, they were mostly issued in 2015 and 2016.

16 women field researchers interviewed 480 women

In August 2018, 16 women field researchers interviewed women who were forced to migrate from southeastern provinces Diyarbakır Mardin, Şırnak and Hakkari to Mersin and İstanbul.

The Migration Monitoring Association wrote the report in partnership with other civil society components and with the support of the European Union Delegation to Turkey. The report was written within the scope of the project "Supporting internally displaced persons' accession to their social rights," supported the European Instrument for Democracy & Human Rights (EIDHR).

All the 480 women interviewed in the research were above 18. 78 percent of the participants were between 18 and 50. Among the 480 women, 51 percent stated they are not literate.

"The most basic rights were violated"

The report compiled the following from the interviews:

50 percent of the participants said they their most basic rights were violated. Violations of the rights to life, housing, accessing education and health services happened often, the women told.
More than 80 percent of the people had difficulties accessing water, electricity and basic food items. Many people said that they experienced all the violations that were mentioned in the survey and said, "they could not access to anything."
The women stated that the violations they most frequently experienced were being subjected to inhuman or insulting behavior and damaging the bodily integrity of themselves or a relative.
The participants stated that among the types of violence they experienced or witnessed in the period of curfews, the most frequent ones were physical and verbal violence by security forces (63%) and domestic violence (31%).
32 percent of the women said that they lost a relative, 41 percent said they were under oppression and threat, 15 percent said they were arrested, 12 percent said they were tortured and 2 percent said they witness forced disappearances.
75 percent of the women said they were affected psychosocially and 31 percent said domestic violence rose.
Among those who said they were subjected to indignity and their privacy were violated, 21 percent said it was happened by verbal assault, 3 percent said it happened during body searches by men, 2 percent said it happened by physical contact and 1 percent said their bodies were exposed.

Women "lost belief in justice"

Zelal Coşkun and Yeter Tan from the research team spoke to bianet about the report.

"Women told us that the sense of justice is no more, they don't believe in justice in any way. They said they need psychological support and they couldn't get themselves together. They said they won't leave where they live no matter what happens," said Coşkun.

Tan added, "After the relatively mild climate of the resolution process, such a hard period was not a thing the women were expecting. This is why their belief in justice was shaken."

Underpinning that deaths, detentions and torture were very common in the period of curfews, Tan said that they wanted the rights violations of women more visible.

"You deserved that"

The women who were forced to migrate to western provinces were also subjected to rights violations, the researchers remarked.

Coşkun said, "In the places they went, children experienced many problems at schools. The children who said they came from Cizre were told, 'You deserved that'. This caused aggression among children. Actually, all of them imagine that they will return and don't settle in where they migrate." (EMK/VK)

Origin

BIA News Desk

Evrim Kepenek

@kepenekevrimm

[email protected]

all articles of the author

Editor of Bianet’s women and LGBTI+ news section (Oct 2018–Feb 2025). Previously worked as a Bianet intern between 2000 and 2001. Reported for Cumhuriyet, BirGün,...

Editor of Bianet’s women and LGBTI+ news section (Oct 2018–Feb 2025). Previously worked as a Bianet intern between 2000 and 2001. Reported for Cumhuriyet, BirGün, DİHA, Jinha, Jin News, and İMC TV. Also worked for local newspapers in Rize. Her articles and news reports have been published in Sivil Sayfalar, Yeşil Gazete, Journo, and various industry magazines. She is one of the founding writers of GOR, a magazine focused on Hemşin culture.

She contributed to several books, including Portraits of Women from the Black Sea: From Green to Blue, The Basket on Her Back, and Media and Lies. Winner of the Musa Anter Journalism Award (2011) and the Turkish Psychiatric Association’s Best News Award (2024).

A founding member of the Turkish Journalists’ Union’s Women and LGBTI+ Commission, she currently serves as a board member of the union’s İstanbul Branch (2023–2027).

She holds degrees in European Union studies from İstanbul University and international relations from Bilgi University. She organizes workshops on gender-sensitive journalism and reporting on gender-based violence. Since Feb 2025, she has been working as a women's news editor.