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UN urges Turkey to probe claims of forced
suicide among women 1.6.2006
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ANKARA, May 1,
2006 (AFP) , -- Allegations of disguised honor
killings or forced suicides among women in mainly
Kurdish southeast Turkey cannot be dismissed and
should be carefully investigated, a UN reporter said
Wednesday.
"Clues that raise suspicion in this direction cannot
be brushed aside," Yakin Erturk, the UN Human Rights
Commission's rapporteur on violence against women,
told reporters after a fact-finding trip to three
provinces in the conservative southeast.
"The information I collected does not allow me to
conclude that all of these are ordinary suicides,"
she said. "The authorities should examine with great
meticulousness such suspicious cases."
Erturk explained that many of the suicide cases
reported to her in the provinces of Batman,
Sanliurfa and Van did not appear to be suspicious.
"I would like to note, however, that senior justice
and law enforcement officials informed me about
cases in which there were reasonable grounds to
believe that the suicide was instigated or that a
so-called honor killing was disguised as a suicide
or an accident," she said.
She cited as an example a case in which a woman who
appeared to have hanged herself was found to have
severe bruises on her body.
The practice of honor killings, in which a woman is
slain for having "stained" family honor, usually by
engaging in an extra-marital affair, has long marred
Turkey's drive to improve women's rights, a key
demand of the European Union which it is seeking to
join.
The practice is mostly seen in the impoverished
southeast, where a large part of the predominantly
Kurdish population is still in the grip of die-hard
patriarchal and tribal traditions.
Honor killings and blood feuds have claimed 1,190
lives in Turkey in the past six years, according to
police figures.
Ankara has toughened penalties for perpetrators of
such killings, now punishable by life in prison, and
passed other laws boosting women's rights.
But Erturk charged that "authorities too often lack
the wilingness to implement these laws" and
"politicians and administrators are often inclined
to arrange themselves with local power norms at the
expense of women's rights."
She said more women than men were committing suicide
in southeast Turkey, contrary to the worldwide
trend.
"I have found that the patriarchal order and the
human rights violations that go along with it -- for
example, forced and early marriages and domestic
violence -- are often key contributing factors to
suicides of women," she said.
Additional pressure results from poverty, migration,
child sexual abuse in the family and political
tensions in the region, she added.
Erturk is to pen a report on her findings and
suggest further measures to the Ankara government.
AFP
Southeastern Turkey: North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
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