Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs,
Human Rights Dialogue, Violence against women,
Series 2, 10 (Fall 2003), <http://www.cceia.org/view
Media.php/ prmID/1061>.
Center for Women’s Global Leadership (ed.), Gender vio-
lence and women’s human rights in Africa, New
Brunswick, N.J. 1994.
R. E. Dobash and R. Dobash, Violence against wives,
New York 1979.
N. Green, Gender violence in Africa. African women’s
responses, New York 1999.
Human Rights Watch, Shattered lives. Sexual violence
during the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, New
York 1996.
——,Just die quietly. Domestic violence and women’s
vulnerability to HIV in Uganda, New York 2003.
S. London, Conciliation and domestic violence in Senegal,
West Africa, in Political and Legal Anthropology
Review 20 (1997), 83–91.
S. E. Merry, Women, violence, and the human rights sys-
tem, in M. Agosin (ed.), Women, gender, and human
rights, New Brunswick, N.J. 2001, 83–97.
R. Ofei-Aboagye, Domestic violence in Ghana. Some ini-
tial questions, in M. A. Fineman and R. Mykitiuk
(eds.), The public nature of private violence. The dis-
covery of domestic abuse, New York 1994, 260–84.
M. J. Osirim, Crisis in the state and the family. Violence
against women in Zimbabwe, in African Studies
Quarterly. The Online Journal for Africa Studies 7
(2003), <http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i2a8.htm>.
F. Oyekanmi (ed.), Men, women and violence, Dakar
1997.
United Nations Population Fund, State of world popula-
tion 2003, New York 2003.
C. Watts, S. Osam, and E. Win, The private is public. A
study of violence against women in Southern Africa,
Harare 1995.
World Health Organization, Understanding women’s
attitudes toward wife beating in Zimbabwe, in Bulletin
of the World Health Organization(2003), 501–8.Scott LondonTurkeyAlmost all forms of violence against women in
the family are widespread in Turkey. There is no
female genital mutilation (FGM) or dowry killing
but honor crimes do occur. According to the
Turkish Civil Code marriage is only possible
between opposite sexes; thus violence occurring in
same-sex relationships is not covered here.
Domestic violence includes physical, economic,
sexual, and verbal violence, isolation, constant criti-
cism, attacks against self-esteem, and so forth. In
short, most forms of violence can be seen in the
family. Violence is based on inequality of power
between spouses and is seen as the best way of con-
trolling women. A Turkish proverb demonstrates
this attitude: “A woman’s womb should not be left
free from a fetus and her back should not be left
without a stick.”128 domestic violence
There is no specific article or chapter regarding
domestic violence in the Turkish Penal Code.
General rules applied to physical violence are ap-
plied to domestic violence as well. Articles 414, 415,
and 416 deal with rape, seduction of children, and
assault on chastity and Article 417 covers aggra-
vating circumstances connected with these crimes.
The age of consent is 15. Articles 414 and 415 of
the Turkish Penal Code deal with the rape of per-
sons under the age of 15; Article 414 refers to
“whoever rapes an infant under the age of 15” and
Article 415 refers to “whoever attempts to assault
the honor and chastity of an infant under the age of
15.” Article 416 covers rape and assault that leads
to sexual violence against a person who is over 15
by use of any means of coercion, deceit, fraud, and
the like. Article 478 regulates the maltreatment of
family members, including children, with imprison-
ment of offenders ranging from three months to
three years. Article 417 deals with the punishment
of rape, seduction of children, and assault on
chastity. However, none of the articles in the Penal
Code mention domestic violence directly. Rape in
marriage is not considered a felony. Although arti-
cles related to rape do not make any differentiation
between rapes occurring within or outside mar-
riage, both decisions of the Criminal Court of
Appeal and legal theory state that marriage is the
place where people satisfy their sexual desires legit-
imately. By accepting marriage, each spouse implic-
itly gives consent to sexual intercourse and it is
therefore not possible to talk about rape in mar-
riage. In the Turkish Civil Code, violence against a
wife may form a ground for moral compensation
and divorce. The Turkish Penal Code is about to
undergo a total change. In the new proposals pend-
ing at the Turkish Grand National Assembly, rape
within the family is considered a crime (Article
105/2). Sexual crimes are covered under the head-
ing “Crimes against Sexual Inviolability.”
The official State Institute of Statistics does not
collect data on violence against women, in either
general or domestic matters. The only statistics on
domestic violence have been collected either by pri-
vate researchers or universities. Thus the extent of
domestic violence or rape or any other form of vio-
lence against women in Turkey is unknown.
Separate from the provisions in the Civil Code
and the Penal Code against maltreatment, there is
also the Law on the Protection of Family, law num-
ber 4320, issued on 14 January 1998. This law was
promulgated as a result of the women’s movement
in Turkey. According to Article 1, if a spouse or
child or another member of the family living under