Submitted by crinadmin on
A UN envoy is to visit Batman in south-east Turkey to investigate reports of an alarming rise in the number of women committing suicide. The UN special rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Erturk, will visit four cities during a 10-day fact-finding mission to the country. She will assess claims the high suicide rate is linked to tougher laws for those found guilty of honour crimes. Thirty-six women in Batman have attempted suicide so far this year.
That is already more than in the whole of last year.
The UN special rapporteur will spend more than a week in Batman and other towns in the region investigating the deaths.
'Forced suicides'
She will meet officials, civil society groups and some of the families involved in an attempt to understand what is driving women to suicide and what might be done to help prevent it.
Some suggest the key motive could be despair at a restricted lifestyle. Many families migrated to Batman from the deeply conservative countryside.
Others suspect many of the cases may be forced suicides where a girl is ordered to take her own life to cleanse her family's honour, perhaps locked in a room with a rope or a gun.
Honour killings are decided by family council and are usually committed by a male relative, but recent reforms mean the penalties for such a crime are far stiffer. Women's groups report a rise in the number of unexplained deaths labelled as suicide.
The Turkish government has begun work to raise awareness about domestic violence and the mosques have been instructed to preach against honour crimes in particular, but changing the mentality that drives such killings is an enormous task.
In the meantime in Batman there is still no shelter women in danger can run to and no local hotline number they can call.
More information
- Visit CRIN's children and violence website
- Visit CRIN's thematic page on discrimination