At least 339 women were murdered by men in Turkey in the year 2021 according to an analysis by bianet based on various media reports. Twenty of these were killed despite orders for their protection or other preventive measures.

Men murdered 198 women in their own homes and 105 outside the home in places like offices, hospitals, the countryside, busy roads or car parks. The scene of murder in 36 incidents remained unreported in the media.

A further 213 women, including some transwomen, died in suspicious circumstances within the same period of time, while 772 women were reportedly forced into sex work, and 424 women and 208 children were sexually abused by men.

More than half of the murder victims were killed in just 10 provinces.

Istanbul was ranked first in terms of femicide incidents with 55 women murdered in one year. The southern province of Antalya followed with 21 incidents, the western provinces of Izmir and Kocaeli with 14 each, another southern province, Adana, with 14, the capital city Ankara with 13, the central provinces of Konya and Kayseri with 13 and 12 respectively and the western provinces of Bursa and Denizli with 10 and 8 respectively.

While 62% of the murders were committed by a husband or lover, 11% were killed by members of the nuclear family, 7% by other relatives and 6% by acquaintances.

Turkish Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soylu earlier warned against disinformation concerning the murder of women in Turkey, claiming with a degree of optimism that the global rate for the murders was more than three times the rate in Turkey.

Soylu tweeted in March 2021: “The rate of incidents involving murder of women is 13 per million worldwide. The rate is 7 in Europe, and 3.8 in Turkey. We have the responsibility of combatting every kind of violence. Turkey will be a model for the world.

A female deputy of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Hülya Atçı, had also said in March that the situation regarding cases that involved murder of women in Turkey was ‘exaggerated’, and that ‘twelve times as many men as women are killed’ in Turkey.