ANALYSIS: Sexual Violence Against Women in South East Turkey: a Tactic of War

Data from different sources seems to consistently estimate that no less than 100 women come forward yearly to denounce abuse by security forces. Since only an approximate 10% of victims do complain, the real figure would ascend to around 1000 cases of violence against women perpetrated by security forces every year.

South East Turkey is mainly populated by Kurdish people, a large ethnic minority yet to be recognized by the State. In the context of an armed conflict in this region, a product the State's denial of Kurdish self-determination aspirations, politically active women have become a target for police and military forces.

Violence by State agents targets women who are active in the Kurdish movement that claims their minority and human rights and who voice political beliefs unacceptable for the government and the military in order to hinder their fight and to punish the whole community.

Torture experienced by women political activists and human rights defenders at the hands of Turkish security forces occurs both under custody and not in detention, and includes threats and acts of sexual abuse, such as rape, stripping and verbal sexual abuse. Common forms of sexual torture performed by Turkish security forces reported by the victims interviewed by the International Free Women's Foundation in 2005 include vaginal, oral, or anal rape using penis, batons, water hoses or other materials; mass rapes; urinating into the victim's mouth; electroshocks to breast nipples and sexual organs; forced virginity-tests; strip-searching, and stripping during questioning. Threats of rape in the presence of their husbands or other close relatives are also used. Inventive methods are being deployed so that the signs and scars of torture and degrading sexual harassment, sexual threats and psychological abuse are not evident.

It is that estimated in 2003 three-fourths of Turkish women detainees experienced sexual harassment, although only a fraction lodged complaints.

As per November 2008, the Legal Aid Project against Sexual Assault and Rape in Custody based in Istanbul, reported that 294 women had applied for legal support within the previous eleven years; 71 of them were rape applications. The Human Rights Association, an organisation with 29 branches across Turkey, believes that only 10% of women abused by security forces actually come forward to complain.

Data from different sources seems to consistently estimate that no less than 100 women come forward yearly to denounce abuse by security forces. Since only an approximate 10% of victims do complain, the real figure would ascend to around 1000 cases of violence against women perpetrated by security forces every year.

The Foundation for Social and Legal Research estimates that between 100 and 150 women report yearly on violence, including sexual violence, perpetrated by State actors.

In 80% of cases, victims of custodial rape were Kurdish women, and in 90% of cases women cited political or war related reason as causes for their arrest.

A female member of a Kurdish political party in Turkey pointed out in June 2010 that during the previous year many women members of the party had been exposed to verbal abuse, threatened and followed in public spaces by policemen and gendarmes. She also stated that “the attacks especially accelerated during the time when the Women's Assembly of the party launched the year-long campaign ‘Let's struggle for freedom, let's overcome the rape culture'”, which attempted to expose how security forces “in order to break the pride of the society they attack the pride of women”.