World Bulletin / News Desk

The Turkish government has cooperated with the EU to launch a project called the “Prevention of Domestic Violence against Women” with the aim of training rural security forces on the issue.

The project will be carried out by Turkey’s Ministry of Family and Social Policies and Gendarmerie General Command. The program is co-financed by European Union and Turkey’s EU Ministry with a total budget of 2.9 million euros.

Within the scope of the project, Gendarmerie will train its own instructors in order to tackle the violence against women. Total of 10.000 community police will receive training on gender equality and combating violence against women in families.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the project that was held in Ankara Tuesday, Turkey’s Minister of EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said “The most brutal violence against women is to take away their freedom. The key to the European Union is in the hearts of our women.”

“Even organizing such an event has to be considered as breaking taboos” said Bagis, “With this project, our Gendarmerie will be a shelter and our ministries and EU will be a shield to the violence against women.”

The opening ceremony started with the video presentation of the project in which the following mottos were underlined: “A life with no violence is the right of every woman” and “Violence is not a part of life.”

Minister of Family and Social Policies Fatma Sahin, Interior Minister Muammer Guler and European Union Turkey Delegation VP Béla Szombati also addressed in the ceremony of the project that is co-financed by EU Ministry.

“Violence is not just a homicidal attempt and beating, if a girl is getting married without her consent, she will also find Gendarmerie for support. We will give the necessary protection and rehab facilities to women and rehabilitate their offenders as well” said Sahin.

Interior Minister Guler spoke about the legal aspect of the project and said “By enforcing the law, protection of family and preventing violence against women, our ministries are taking the necessary steps combating against these kinds of crimes”.

“I would like to underline that we are launching this project just one week before the international day of “Eliminating violence against women” that will be on 25th November” said Turkey’s European Union Delegation VP.

The Gendarmerie General Command is initiating “Prevention of Domestic Violence Against Women Project” in order to combat domestic violence in coordination with Ministry of Family and Social Policies, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of European Union. Between January-October in 2013, the Gendarmerie ensured protective cautionary decisions for about 4000 women and reached out to nearly 20.000 others to give a helping hand.

Every two out of five women are exposed to violence in Turkey.