The debates triggered by a 14-fold increase in violent crimes against women in Turkey in the last seven years have pitted Islamic male scholars and journalists against Islamic women writers, reports Sertaç Sehlikoğl

Sehlikoglu, Sertac

English

UCL Discovery

Rape in Turkey: between incitement, complicity and silencePublished on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net) Rape in Turkey: between incitement, complicity andsilence                                                 Sertaç Sehlikoğlu, 18th March 2011         Subjects:50.50 [1]50.50 [2]Culture [3]Civil society [4]Turkey [5]Pathways of Women's Empowerment [6]Religion Gender Politics [7]Sertaç Sehlikoğlu [8]       The debates triggered by a 14-fold increase in violent crimes against women in Turkey in the lastseven years have pitted Islamic male scholars and journalists against Islamic women writers, reportsSertaç Sehlikoğlu   About the authorSertaç Sehlikoğlu is a women's rights activist and owner of the Muslim Women in Sports blog. She isstudying for a PhD in social anthropology at Cambridge University.  There has been a rise in public debates about rape and sexual assaults in Turkey, since the broadcast of the new soap opera, What is Fatmagül's Fault? [9]. This TV drama covers the tragicstory of a young woman raped by four men and forced to marry one of them. In the last seven years,violence and sex crimes against women have increased by 1400% in Turkey; the soap opera merelyreflects public discomfort regarding this trend. According to the report Bianet News [10] compiledfrom the press, last year 217 women were murdered and 164 women were injured at the hands oftheir male relatives. Over a quarter of these women were murdered by spouses they were trying toreject or divorce. 207 women and children were raped, while 381 were sexually abused; in total 90%were abused by men they knew closely, such as their relatives, friends and teachers.The legal and governmental cautions against sex crimes are not effective enough to respond to thescale and gravity of the problem. Yet, women are continuously facing resistance from society whichcreates a hostile environment for the victims. When a group of women from the ruling Justice andDevelopment Party (AKP) suggested the use of chemical castration for abusers as part of a largerproposal to act against sex crimes, they faced criticisms from theologians urging them to evaluatethe cases of rape carefully. According to the head of the Department of Theology at SelçukUniversity, Prof. Orhan Çeker, “women are at the center of the problem of sexual assault”; women’slow-cut dress - decollete - is the reason for men’s sexual arousal and it is a factor that lawmakersshould not underestimate. Although his words earned him an investigation by the Council of HigherEducation and the Public Prosecutor (Savcılık ), and he received an immediate disclaimer from thePresidency of Religious Affairs to the effect that his opinions had no religious basis, this enabled usto hear the voices in support of Prof Çeker and to analyse their archaic perceptions more closely.The public debates unleashed by Çeker’s pronouncements mapped out different positions regardingsex crimes. A vocal group of Islamic women strongly opposed to Çeker argued that it is men, notwomen, who are at the center of the problem. Their main argument rested on the Quranic warning tomen to lower their gaze if exposed to a sexually arousing scene, body or image. Theology scholar Dr.Hidayet Şefkatli Tuksal, pointed to women’s harassment [11] during the Hajj - pilgrimage to Meccaand Medina - as an extreme example of men’s sex crimes. Women writers from Islamic media like Nazife Şişman [12], Fatma  Barbarosoğlu [13], Özlem Albayrak [14] and Elif Şafak [15] warned aboutthe impact of discourses linking women’s public sexuality to harassment. They pointed out thatÇeker could be held indirectly responsible for legitimizing sexual assault if his words incited any manto abuse a woman on account of her clothing, or make a man think that a revealing dress makes aPage 1 of 3Rape in Turkey: between incitement, complicity and silencePublished on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)woman deserve sexual assault.A second group that participated in these discussions were several journalists from the Islamic presswith a highly masculinist tone, such as Ali Bulaç [16], Ali Ünal [17] and Serdar Arseven [18]. Theyaccused the Islamic female writers who criticized Çeker’s views of being unable to fully comprehendIslam as they were "afflicted" by western ideas, and were pandering to feminism which, in their view,was clearly incompatible with Islamic practice. Ali Bulaç from Daily Zaman [16]  wrote an articleentitled "Reactions of the Organism" in which he used discourses of modern psychology - ‘westernideas’ which apparently did not diminish or impair his comprehension of Islam - to argue that a maleorganism is automatically aroused by women’s public display of her sexuality, and that thereforenudity constitutes grounds for provoking rape or harassment.What these authors preferred to ignore was the erronous link between sexual assault and women’sdress, since over 90 percent of the victims were harassed by their male acquaintances, rather thanrandom men sexually aroused by their attire. Indeed, sexual assault and rape is not an ‘automatic’result of men’s arousal, rather, it is a pathology and a crime linked with desire for power, anger,sadistic behaviour and similar motives. The writers in question still seem to be in the grip of archaicand noxious assumptions that account for the fact that many victims of rape cannot report theirabuse in Turkey, since they fear that officers of the law, their family, friends and the attorney willquestion them about whether they did anything to ‘invite’ assaulters and rapists. The way in whichpeople like Çeker and Bulaç present sexual harassment does nothing more than intensify the traumaof rape and sexual assault victims.In an era of democracy, Bulaç also expressed concerns over Islamists not being able to discuss therules of Islam which, he purports, would allow/condone such violations. It would be a mystery toanyone who knows the basics of Islamic fiqh how linking nudity to rape or harassment can have aplace in religion. Similarly, other authors who wrote in favour of Çeker’s stance seem to be moreconcerned about their own freedom of speech than women’s freedom of public visibility. Forinstance, in his article “Our values have never been so vulnerable [17]” Ali Ünal problematized thecondemnation campaign against the views of  Prof Çeker, arguing that Çeker should be able toexpress his ‘religious’ opinions about women’s appropriate dress.While there have been a couple men from the Islamic media who have countered the prevailingclaim that abused women ‘ask for it’, the common tendency among Islamic writers and columniststowards issues related to sexual assault has been a disturbing silence. Even on the March 8th,International Women’s Day, news items and reports highlighting the urgency of dealing with violenceand sex crimes against women were visibly absent from these men’s columns compared to other,more secular media. This silence can be interpreted as a reflection of the Islamic alarm about genderissues, which is always coloured by fears concerning the collapse of the family, the rise ofhomosexualty, etc. It is incomprehensible, however, that they refuse to inform their readers aboutthe frightening turn in violence against women in the last decade, despite the outcry from practicingwomen who do wear the hijab [19] and who are nonetheless faced with sexual harassment in public.As an inevitable result, it is only Islamic women, not men, who show awareness and sensitivity aboutsexual harassment and abuse, since they are the ones who have access to first-hand informationregarding these incidents through individual experiences or the experiences of their friends. Thetone with which the issue of sexual violence is being dealt with leads practising women to feel moreand more frustrated with the rising masculinist voices - and silences -  in their own communities.     SideboxesRelated stories: A tangled web: the politics of gender in Turkey [20]        The rightful place of gender equality within Islam  [21]        The quest for gender-just peace: from impunity to accountability  [22]        Page 2 of 3Rape in Turkey: between incitement, complicity and silencePublished on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)Domestic violence is not a private family matter [23]         Country: Turkey         Topics: Civil society        Culture                                                               This article is published by Sertaç Sehlikoğlu, and openDemocracy.net under a CreativeCommons licence [24]. You may republish it with attribution for non-commercial purposes followingthe CC guidelines. For other queries about reuse, click here [25]. Some articles on this site arepublished under different terms. No images on the site or in articles may be re-used withoutpermission unless specifically licensed under Creative Commons.                        Source URL: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/serta%C3%A7-sehliko%C4%9Flu/rape-in-turkey-between-incitement-complicity-and-silence Created 03/18/2011 - 11:43 Links:[1] http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/5050-theme[2] http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050[3] http://www.opendemocracy.net/topics/culture[4] http://www.opendemocracy.net/topics/civil-society[5] http://www.opendemocracy.net/countries/turkey[6] http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/pathways-of-womens-empowerment[7] http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/religion-gender-politics[8] http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/serta%C3%A7-sehliko%C4%9Flu[9] http://www.kanald.com.tr/FatmaGulunSucuNe[10] http://bianet.org/bianet/insan-haklari/127369-erkekler-2010da-217-kadin-oldurdu[11] http://www.haber3.com/kadin,-hac-da-bile-tacize-ugruyor-690585h.htm?interstitial=true[12] http://haksozhaber.net/author_article_detail.php?id=20230[13] http://www.gazeteciler.com/polemik/yeni-safak-yazarindan-dekolte-cikisi-30935h.html[14] http://yenisafak.com.tr/yazarlar/?t=22.02.2011&amp;y=OzlemAlbayrak[15] http://www.haberturk.com/yazarlar/601782-konusarak-kirmak[16] http://www.zaman.com.tr/yazar.do?yazino=1096519[17] http://www.zaman.com.tr/yazar.do?yazino=1096521[18] http://www.habervakti.com/?page=articles&amp;id=5600[19] http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=meryem8217s-outcry-2011-02-24[20] http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/deniz-kandiyoti/tangled-web-politics-of-gender-in-turkey[21]http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/janine-moussa/rightful-place-of-gender-equality-within-islam[22]http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/yakin-erturk/quest-for-gender-just-peace-from-impunity-to-accountability[23]http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/carolina-gottardo/domestic-violence-is-not-private-family-matter[24] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/[25] http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/syndicationPage 3 of 3

Rape in Turkey: Between Incitement, Complicity, and Silence

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Rape in Turkey: Between Incitement, Complicity, and Silence

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