Campaign of 'end' to violence by women from Van
VAN (DİHA) - Women have started a campaign against the attacks on women legitimized as "women's suicides" in the province. They say that state-encouraged violence against women is an invisibilized continuation of war in the region.
The last month has seen an alarming rise against violence against women in Van province. Four women committed suicide in just one week in the province, where abuse of women is a persistent problem. Women say that these suicides are not individual, but political. When the state ignores harassment, rape and child marriage, says activists, itcondemns women to death—particularly in Kurdistan. Perpetrators of gendered violence frequently receive sentence reductions in Turkey. This week, eight Turkish soldiers in the Northern Kurdistan province of Bingöl received sentence reductions and acquittals in the case of their repeated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl. Meanwhile, Nevin Yıldırım in the Black Sea region received a life sentence for killing the rapist who threatened her life.
"It's clear where the system wants to see women. That's why we're standing up for what we believe in," said Nazmiye Acar, one of the coordinators of the awareness-raising campaign in Van province. The Congress of Free Women (KJA) is leading the awareness-raising campaign from April 1 to May 10. Throughout the month, women will be leading marches, neighborhood meetings, seminars and TV programs to raise awareness about violence against women. They plan to work first with school-age children, but say they want to reach every household in Van. Unions, opposition parties HDP and DBP, democratic Islamic groups and the Peace Mothers are also taking part.
With the PKK-state peace process ongoing, says Nazmiye, some may see the war in Northern Kurdistan as over. But while "there's not a war with weapons, there's a dirty war continuing in Kurdistan. And it's being realized through targeting women." Nazmiye says that the tactics are the drug trade, the forcing of women into prostitution and impunity for rapists and killers of women(for which the ruling AKP is well known).Remarks like Erdoğan' recommendation that womenhave at least three children and that their best career is motherhood are, as ridiculous as they may seem, propagandain this undeclared war, according to Nazmiye.
The slogan of the Van campaign is "I exist too, and I'm standing up for my moral and political values."
(cm/nt)
