For Derya, a waiflike girl of 17, the order to kill herself came from an uncle and was delivered in a text message to her cellphone.
"You have blackened our name," it read. "Kill yourself and clean our shame or we will kill you first."
Derya said that her crime was to become involved with a boy she had met at school. She knew the risks: Her aunt had been killed by her grandfather for seeing a boy. But after having been cloistered and veiled for most of her life, she said, she felt free for the first time and wanted to express her independence.
When news of the love affair spread to her family, she said, her mother warned her that her father would kill her. But she refused to listen. Then came the threatening text messages, sent by her brothers and uncles, sometimes 15 a day. Derya said they were the equivalent of a death sentence.
Consumed by shame and fearing for her life, she said, she decided to carry out her family's wishes. First, she said, she jumped into the Tigris River, but she survived. Next she tried hanging herself, but an uncle cut her down. Then she slashed her wrists with a kitchen knife.
"My family attacked my personality, and I felt I had committed the biggest sin in the world," she said from a women's shelter where she had traded in her veil for a T-shirt and jeans.
She declined to give her last name for fear that her family was still hunting her.
"I felt I had no right to dishonor my family, that I have no right to be alive. So I decided to respect my family's desire and to die," she said.
Every few weeks in Batman and the surrounding area in southeast Anatolia, which is poor, rural and deeply influenced by conservative Islam, a young woman tries to take her life. Others have been stoned to death, strangled, shot or buried alive. Their offenses ranged from stealing a glance at a boy to wearing a short skirt, wanting to go to the movies, being raped by a stranger or relative or having consensual sex.
Hoping to join the EU, Turkey has tightened the punishment for attacks on women and girls who have committed such offenses. But the violence has continued, if by different means: Parents are trying to spare their sons from the harsh punishments associated with killing their sisters by pressing the daughters to take their own lives instead.
"Families of disgraced girls are choosing between sacrificing a son to a life in prison by designating him to kill his sister or forcing their daughters to kill themselves," said Yilmaz Akinci, who works for a rural development group. "Rather than losing two children, most opt for the latter option."
Women's groups here say the evidence suggests that a growing number of girls considered to be dishonored are being locked in a room for days with rat poison, a pistol or a rope, and told by their families that the only thing resting between their disgrace and redemption is death.
Batman (pronounced bot-MON) is a grim and dusty city of 250,000 people where religion is clashing with Turkey's official secularism. The city was the setting for the latest novel by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, Snow, which chronicled a journalist's investigation of a suicide epidemic among teenage girls.
In the past six years, there have been 165 suicides or suicide attempts in Batman, 102 of them by women. As many as 36 women have killed themselves since the start of this year, according to the UN. The organization estimates that 5,000 women are killed each year around the world by relatives who accuse them of bringing dishonor on their families; the majority of the killings are in the Middle East.
Psychologists here say social upheavals in a region rocked by terrorism have played a role in the suicides. Many of the victims come from families in rural villages who have been displaced from the mountains to the cities because of warfare between Turkey and a Kurdish guerrilla group that wants to create an independent state for Kurds in southeastern Turkey.
Young women like Derya, who have previously led protected lives under the rigid moral strictures of their families and Islam, are suddenly finding themselves in the modern Turkey of Internet dating and MTV. The shift can create dangerous tensions, sometimes lethal ones, between their families and the secular values of the republic.
When a woman is suspected of engaging in sexual relations out of wedlock, her male relatives convene a family council to decide her sentence. Once news of the family's shame has spread to the community, the family typically rules that only through death can its honor be restored.
Derya said that the underlying problem was inequality between the sexes, even though the prophet Mohammed argued in favor of empowering women.
"In my village and in my father's tribe, boys are in the sky while girls are treated as if they are under the earth," she said. "As long as families do not trust their daughters, bad things will continue to happen."
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
‘SHARP COMPETITION’: Australia is to partner with US-based Lockheed Martin to make guided multiple launch rocket systems, an Australian defense official said Australia is to ramp up missile manufacturing under a plan unveiled yesterday by a top defense official, who said bolstering weapons stockpiles would help keep would-be foes at bay. Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said the nation would establish a homegrown industry to produce long-range guided missiles and other much-needed munitions. “Why do we need more missiles? Strategic competition between the United States and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment,” Conroy said in a speech. “That competition is at its sharpest in our region, the Indo-Pacific.” Australia is to partner with US-based weapons giant Lockheed Martin to make
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
Pets are not forgotten during Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, when even Fido and Tiger get a place at the altars Mexican families set up to honor their deceased loved ones, complete with flowers, candles and photographs. Although the human dead usually get their favorite food or drink placed on altars, the nature of pet food can make things a little different. The holiday has roots in Mexican pre-Hispanic customs, as does the reverence for animals. The small, hairless dogs that Mexicans kept before the Spanish conquest were believed to help guide their owners to the afterlife, and were sometimes given
RSS