JINHA

ISTANBUL – In Turkey, 200 women were killed in the first eight months of 2015, according to a statement by the alliance of Socialist Women’s Assemblies.

A new statement reports that rising male violence in Turkey has corresponded with the escalation of war in the country. The Socialist Women’s Assemblies cited examples like the torture and display of the body of woman guerrilla Ekin Wan and the police’s targeting of young women like 13-year-old Cemile Çağırga in the Kurdish town of Cizre in the statement, which said that “war triggered male violence” in Turkey.

In the month when the Turkish state began a severe war in Northern Kurdistan (southeastern and eastern Turkey), the statement reported an escalation of killings of women in the region. In just the first eight months of 2015, 200 women were killed across Turkey.

In the face of this violence, the women wrote, women have increasingly turned to self-defense of their bodies and their communities. The report cited the two cases in August alone of women killing the men who committed violence against them as an example of the trend.

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