AKP and MHP Kill Motion on Women’s Safety

A motion presented by CHP and the DEM Party to launch a comprehensive parliamentary investigation into the causes of violence against women was rejected in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, intensifying public concern over women’s safety. The proposal, intended to examine failings across law enforcement, the judiciary, and social policy, was voted down by the AK Party and MHP, prompting strong objections from opposition lawmakers who argue that existing protection mechanisms are not preventing the country’s rising femicide numbers.

The debate unfolded against a backdrop of growing national anxiety about gender-based violence. With numerous recent cases drawing widespread attention, the refusal to form a dedicated investigative committee has raised questions about political will, institutional readiness, and the effectiveness of current legal protections.

Opposition Highlights Gaps in Protection Mechanisms

CHP Bartın MP Aysu Bankoğlu delivered one of the session’s most forceful statements, arguing that systemic failures within the justice system are leaving women vulnerable. She pointed to repeated cases in which women were killed despite seeking state intervention. In her translated remarks, she stated:

“If women are being killed while the government targets women who want to march, not the murderers, there is a grave problem. When judges release killers at their discretion, when police hand women seeking protection back to the husbands they fear, when women supposedly under state protection are murdered in broad daylight. While all this happens, the government tells fairy tales about ‘zero tolerance for violence,’ femicides become political.
The harsh reality is that many murdered women were not simply unprotected.  They were killed because the state allowed their killers back onto the streets. When someone signs the release order for a murderer, is that not the same as pulling the trigger? Is this your understanding of justice?”

Bankoğlu continued by criticizing decisions such as the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention and political debates surrounding Law No. 6284, which she argues weaken the structural guarantees women rely on. She added:

“Your system is built not to protect women but to absolve killers. The night you left the Istanbul Convention with the signature of one man, you showed whose side you were on. The day you opened Law 6284 to debate, you revealed your position. Today, no woman in Turkey is safe. Not in the street, not on a bus, not even at home.
Your ‘Year of the Family’ policy collapsed the moment it became known that 65% of women are killed in their own homes and 35% by their husbands. We women no longer want decisions about our lives made by leaders, fathers, or husbands. We do not want ownership. We want respect for our existence!”

DEM Party: “A Male-Dominated Judiciary Shields Violence”

DEM Party MP Özgül Saki also strongly criticized the government’s policies, arguing that institutional attitudes restrict women’s autonomy. According to her translated remarks:

“The government does not see women as equal, free individuals capable of making their own choices; instead, it confines them to the family structure and says, ‘The state decides.’ It declares: ‘I decide over your body; whether you give birth, how you give birth, whether you marry, whether you live alone.’ Women are rejecting this, and the violence problem extends far beyond these restrictions. Physical, psychological, economic, and sexual violence directly threaten women’s lives. Rising femicide numbers and so-called ‘suspicious’ deaths make the scale of the threat painfully clear.”

Saki also accused the judiciary of minimizing violence:

“What does the ‘male judiciary’ do with these suspicious deaths? It covers them up, disguising male violence as suicide. Women disappear, and the state cannot even find them.”

She concluded by pointing to contradictions between policy messaging and policy implementation:

“The government declares ‘zero tolerance for violence’ while withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention and failing to enforce Law 6284. If the state criminalizes women saying ‘Keep your hands off my body,’ then those hands are clearly already there. You shut down women’s institutions and mockingly replace them with men. We will continue fighting,  with our parties and independent women’s organizations, for an equal, free, dignified life.”

A Divisive Vote With Long-Term Consequences

The rejection of the inquiry motion underscores a deepening divide between government and opposition over how to confront femicide and gender-based violence. Without a formal investigation, critics warn that systemic failings may remain unaddressed and that the underlying causes of violence will persist.