Marta Sömek

 

ADANA - Feminist attorneys, who started a work called “Gender and Law” to change the sexist and masculine language in the judiciary, conduct monitoring, data collection and file follow-up in sexual assault and femicide cases. Participating in the work, Songül Yıldız calls for other lawyers to reach them.

 

While the femicides are increasing day by day, the decisions of the judiciary, the attitude of the media and the masculine mentality cause the crime to become widespread and the perpetrators to be left unpunished. The trials made with a masculine point of view in the femicides, and sexual assault files lead to the "accusation" of women and the "hiding" of the perpetrators. A group of feminist attorneys, who participated in the massacres of women and sexual assault files in Adana as observers and followed up files in many fields, started "Gender and Law Studies" to change this perception and to ensure that the trials are carried out with a feminist point of view. 

Songül Yıldız, one of the attorneys involved in the work, spoke about why they needed such a formation and their goal of changing the sexist language in the judiciary.

 

‘All these discourses hit us in the face, from the police station to forensic reports’

 

Noting that they heard the court board say, "Why didn't you shout" to women in the sexual assault files, and that they were exposed to too many trials that legitimize sexual assault, Songül said: "We were experiencing the discourses that all attorneys in Turkey faced and reacted to by reflecting on the press. Afterwards, we saw that we are experiencing this in the whole mechanism, our encounters with sexist language are hitting us in the face from the police station, the prosecution stage, court corridors, forensic medicine reports."

 

Expressing that they set out to create a transformation in the sexist, masculine language that covers a large part of life, Songül shared that they decided to implement this work called "Gender and Law" as a group of feminists in Adana.

 

‘Data is not collected’

 

Noting that they went to such a formation to uncover the sexist language in the files, discriminatory approaches, and the attitudes they encountered during the hearings, Songül stated that the lack of data on this area accelerated their work. Songül said: "As we got into it later, we realized that we were experiencing even more serious problems, we were aware that no data was collected. "You ask the Ministry, you will not be given any data, you will try to access statistical data on violence against women, but you will never be able to reach them."

 

‘We noticed a blockage in the system’

 

Songül stated that as they started collecting and analyzing data and files, they noticed a blockage in the system. "We are assigned from the Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK) system through the bar associations in the simplest form, but even in the Turkish Penal Code, the system is still called "homicide", she said, and underlined that they cannot reach the victim's gender, age, and which data for which crime. Songül also stated that while collecting data, they started to make changes in the system through the bar association.

 

"We have been involved in a big study to see how the data can be collected regularly, what will the system change bring to us, can we draw statistical results from the things processed in this database", Songül said, and stated that they did not actually follow the images, they were trying to make a report by examining the files.

 

‘Our goal is to transform the male language in the judiciary’

 

Songül said: "We started to investigate whether there are any problems or sexist approaches that women are actually exposed to with the system we call male judgment, or not, and our goal is to reveal them. "Deciphering these by reaching out to lawyer friends or taking testimonies elsewhere, raising awareness and actually transforming the language in the judiciary are among the goals we will go to systematically." Pointing out that they mostly examine the cases of massacres and attempts, Songül stated that in many of the files they have examined, they see that women are subjected to more violence by men closest to them and in areas they trust.

 

‘Women are being made vulnerable to violence by the state’

 

Evaluating the increasing male violence following the decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, Songül continued as follows: "We have already seen very clearly from the comfort of men, from social media and from the violence that followed. We even saw that Law No. 6284 became inapplicable. When we went to the police stations now, they started to say, ‘We are not making a protection order’. This means making women vulnerable to violence by the state. They clearly show that ‘If there is no Istanbul Convention, there is no 6284 application for you’. In other words, violence is increasing, it will continue to increase because men see that the rights protected in that convention have disappeared, the perception of ‘nothing will happen to me’ is now much more comfortable. They decided to withdraw from the convention, but it is still in effect. One of our most important goals is to change the language of the judiciary."

 

‘They do not leave the self-confidence to complain about’

 

Pointing out that in addition to the change of the language of the judiciary, the "unjust provocation" and "good mood" reductions applied to almost all perpetrators should be lifted, Songül said: "With the language, the practice will also change, which is our biggest problem. Today, a prosecutor can say, ‘I am also a woman, why I am not raped’, we live in such a country and that prosecutor is a party in that trial, can you imagine the consequences that may come from there? How insecure women have become, that their lives are being tried, that the life of women who are victims of sexual assault during the trial have been examined. They neither leave women with the self-confidence to complain, nor do they have confidence that the defendants received the punishment they deserve, with the decisions they made as a result of the trials."

 

‘We will decipher the male state language’

 

Repeating that they want to decipher all this male state language and approaches, struggle in this area and raise awareness, Songül emphasized that even if the committee says something, even if the audience is watching, it should be aware that ‘You cannot say this’. Expressing that they want to create a platform where they can discuss, uncover, and reveal their witnesses on their website, Songül called for the witnesses of many women and attorneys to be included.