We collaborated with Turkish women’s groups to become a part of the official Turkish delegation to the Beijing+5 Special Session. We worked to ensure that the delegation gave priority to expanding the scope of violence against women to include honor crimes, defacement, acid attacks, marital rape and forced marriage, that these crimes be included in the Beijing+5 Outcome Document and that governments be obliged to take steps to eradicate these harmful customs and practices.
So far, the Turkish government has taken no legal measures in these fields . On the contrary, the draft of a new Turkish Penal Code presents even more problems. Thus we formed a task force of legal experts and created an alternative draft that focuses on sexual crimes.
Beijing+5 Outcome Document
IV. Actions and initiatives to overcome obstacles and to achieve the full and
accelerated implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action
D. Actions to be taken at the national and international levels
by Governments, regional and international organizations, including the
United Nations system, and international financial institutions and other
actors, as appropriate:
96. (a ) Increase cooperation, policy responses, effective implementation of
national legislation and other protective and preventive measures aimed at the
elimination of violence against women and girls, especially all forms of commercial
sexual exploitation, as well as economic exploitation, including trafficking in
women and children, female infanticide, crimes committed in the name of honor,
crimes committed in the name of passion, racially motivated crimes, abduction and
sale of children, dowry-related violence and deaths, acid attacks and harmful
traditional or customary practices, such as female genital mutilation, early and forced marriages.
