Opposition parties unfurl 'burial shroud' in protest of femicides during Family Ministry budgetary meeting
Lawmakers from Turkey's main opposition CHP protested femicides during budget talks for the Family Ministry by displaying a burial shroud with the names of murdered women. Pro-Kurdish DEM Party MPs joined the protest, setting up posters with photographs of killed women and children.
Duvar English
Members of Turkey's opposition parties on Nov. 27 protested violence against women during the budgetary meetings for the Family and Social Policies Ministry.
Members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party displayed placards reading “The Istanbul Convention Saves Lives,” “Resign,” and “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,” (Women, Life, Freedom) alongside photos of women killed in femicides.
Before the session began, lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) highlighted femicides by holding up a traditional burial shroud.
CHP's Ankara and Trabzon deputies Semra Dinçer and Sibel Suiçmez protested by displaying the shroud, which listed the names of murdered women.
Dinçer addressed Family Minister Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş, saying, “We’ve started carrying a burial shroud in our bags, Madam Minister. It bears the names of murdered women.”
Commission Chair Mehmet Muş responded to the protest, saying, “This is not Taksim Square.”
Ironically, women's organizations were not allowed to protest in Taksim Square on Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Feminists find the Ministry culpable for not addressing the country's femicide reality, and further exacerbating the problem by not properly punishing assailants.
Turkey was the first country in 2011 to ratify the landmark Istanbul Convention treaty, officially known as the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed the presidential decree on March 20, 2021, quitting the landmark treaty on the grounds that the pact "undermines the family."
Some conservatives also pushed for withdrawal saying that the convention was promoting homosexuality through its principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
On July 1, 2021, the country formally left the convention, triggering massive protests and anger from women’s rights groups, who believed the agreement was essential.