Women form human chain from Karaköy to Eminönü: 245 women killed in 10 months

Women formed a chain in Karaköy under the leadership of the November 25 Women's Platform and marched to Eminönü. At the action, it was stated that after the government declared 2026-2035 the 'Family and Population Decade,' 245 women were killed by men in the first 10 months of 2026, while 274 women lost their lives in suspicious circumstances.

In the statement made in Eminönü, it was said that instead of expanding women's rights and preventing male violence, policies centered on the family are trying to place 'women's labor, bodies and lives under control.' After the statement 'Women's lives are not the subject of family policies,' the platform listed its demands as 'secure work, equal pay, free and accessible childcare, the right to housing, freedom and a life without violence.'

In the statement, it was also said that no permission will be given for protection orders to remain on paper, for applications over violence to be ignored, or for perpetrators to be rewarded with reductions for good conduct and unjust provocation; it was stated that so that not one more woman is killed, the impunity regime that feeds male violence must end, and that 'the Istanbul Convention must be brought back into force and Law No. 6284 must be implemented effectively.'

Summary information about attacks on women in recent years was also shared at the action. Fatmanur Çelik, 30, was raped by foundation employee Ayhan Şengüler while she was attending gatherings at the Kuran'a Hizmet Vakfı; she was forced by her family to marry Şengüler. After the prosecutor sought her attacker's acquittal, she began a vigil for justice in front of the Anadolu Courthouse on January 13. The lifeless bodies of Fatmanur Çelik and her 8-year-old daughter Hifa İkra were found on the Zeytinburnu coast on March 3. At the final hearing held on October 14, Ayhan Şengüler was acquitted. Hifa was asked exactly 25 times, 'Did your father touch you?'

Arya, 19, was driven to suicide on April 13, 2026 in the university dormitory where she was staying; her family subjected her to violence because she was a trans woman and took her to conversion therapy. İlayda Zorlu, 19, lost her life on April 17, 2026 in her family home in the Kırıkhan district of Hatay, from a bullet fired from the gun of her father, a police officer. Ayşe Tokyaz, 22, was killed in July 2026 in Küçükçekmece by Cemil Koç, a police officer who had been dismissed from the force.