(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, DECEMBER 29 - In the wake of a report
that 160 women were murdered in Turkey in 2011 by male partners
or relatives, some are calling for women at risk to be given
free guns and lessons in how to use them. The new statistics,
released by the group "We Will Stop the Murders of Women", paint
a dire portrait of the state of women's rights in Turkey, as the
Istanbul newspaper Today's Zaman writes. The report reveals that
one in two of the 160 women murdered were killed "because they
wanted to make an independent decision concerning their own
lives". Of these, 41% wanted to divorce or separate from their
husband or partner, 32% were murdered due to jealously on the
part of their husband and 16% were killed because they rejected
a man's advances. Only 23% of the women who applied to the state
for protection from domestic violence this year received such
assistance, the report said. Such stark statistics prompted
Hayrettin Bulan, chairman of Sefkat-Der, a non-governmental
group working for the protection of women, to suggest that "a
last-resort solution to the problem may be to issue guns to
women facing violence". Bulan added that his organization is
already in talks with shooting ranges to arrange lessons for
women at risk next year. But Hulya Gulgahar, a prominent Turkish
women's rights lawyer, disagreed. "To arm women with guns will
create a whole different set of problems," she said. (ANSAmed).
