The Turkish Femicides

Everything You Need to Know About:

The Turkish Femicides

And why you should pay more attention to #challengeaccepted.

Recently, popular social media site Instagram has been flooded with black-and-white pictures of women with the caption #challengeaccepted. While the premise of #challengeaccepted is female empowerment, the message goes much deeper. The trending hashtag has been used over 6.5 million times, and was initiated to raise awareness about femicides in Turkey.

But what are femicides? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), femicide is “generally understood to involve intentional murder of women because they are women, but broader definitions include killings of women or girls.”

Turkish women began posting black-and-white pictures of themselves following the July 2020 disappearance and brutal murder of a 27-year-old woman named Pinar Gultekin, whose killer later confessed to murdering her, and hiding her remains after she rejected his advances.

While the origin of #challengeaccepted isn’t exactly known, many news outlets cited the explanation of Instagram user @imaann_patel (the account in question no longer active), “Turkish people wake up every day to see a black and white photo of a woman who has been murdered on their Instagram feed, on their newspapers, on their TV screens. The black and white photo challenge started as a way for women to raise their voice. To stand in solidarity with the women we have lost. To show that one day, it could be their picture that is plastered across news outlets.” 

Femicides are not uncommon in Turkey- hundreds of women are murdered each year. What is truly frightening is that most femicides are committed by current or former spouses, romantic partners and men whose advances have been rejected. The WHO further mentioned that “femicide is usually perpetrated by men, but sometimes female family members may be involved.”

Posters in Turkey accompany their pictures with the hashtag #IstanbulSozlesmesiYasatir (Istanbul Convention saves lives) and #saynotoviolenceagainstwomen. The Istanbul Convention focuses on preventing domestic violence, prosecuting offenders and protecting victims. The Treaty was signed in 2011 and an official law was adopted in 2012 to prevent gender-based violence. Yet, in 2011 itself at least 121 women were murdered by men. Nine years later, and only into the seventh month of 2020, the numbers have risen to 155. Between the years 2008-2019 a minimum of 3,185 women were killed due to gender-based violence. According to a Turkish Press agency (Bianet) at least 59% of murders happened at the victims’ homes.

Many women’s groups are asking for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention. However, even basic rights protections won by Turkish women have come under threat as Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) has tried to roll back legislations which their politicians say threaten traditional family values.

While it is wonderful that such an important issue is receiving global attention, huge parts of it have been lost to being "just a trend" as celebrities and social media influencers hurry to join the tide of black-and-white posters. Turkey does not forget its women- their fight for justice still continues. It is up to us, the rest of the world, to let them be remembered by us.

 #Challengeaccepted must not die out like any other trend. 

See the hashtag here. 

Written by Devina

Edited by Nikita. 

Sourced from:

The New York Times

The Independent

PBS

The Guardian.