Restraining order fails to protect yet another woman from murder in Turkey

Duvar English

The lifeless body of retired nurse Hatice Tusu was found in a swamp days after her two children had reported her missing on social media, starting police's search efforts that lead to a man named Suat Aksoy, the subject of a restraining order Tusu obtained.

After being spotted on surveillance footage near the site of Tusu's disappearance, Aksoy confessed to killing the retired nurse and lead police to her body that he had left in a swamp.

Aksoy reportedly said that he killed Tusu out of his love for her.

"I'm Hatice Tusu. You have been searching for me in Didim since Oct. 10. You found my lifeless body in a swamp today. I was slain by a man. This is a femicide. Will you be quiet until all photos turn dark, and your killer finds you?" tweeted the municipality of the western province of Didim following the woman's murder.

The municipality's tweet makes a reference to a recent movement that Turkish women started on social media, posting black and white photographs of themselves to draw attention to the slaughter of women by men in Turkey.

Meanwhile, a women's rights defender from Didim, lawyer Zekiye Baran, said that Tusu would still be alive had the government ensured that the restraining order against the assailant had been enforced.

"This person should have been tracked. In a place like Didim where law enforcement can report to crime scenes immediately, a woman was abducted in broad daylight," Baran said.

"This femicide is certainly a result of the government's policies about women."

Turkey's We Will Stop Femicides platform reported some 16 women's murders in September alone, along with 20 suspicious women's deaths.

Considering that many instances of violence against women go unreported, it's safe to say that one woman is killed in Turkey each day in domestic settings, most often by people they know well, like a former spouse or a relative.