TURKEY WOMENS ISSUES

Turkey is one the most popular destinations in Europe for trafficked women from Ukraine and Russia. (Vladmir Isachenkov, "Soviet Women Slavery Flourishes " Associated Press, 6 November 1997)

Prostitutes are now commonly referred to as "Natashas" because so many come from Russia. ("'Invisible' Women Shown In Russia's Demographics," Martina Vandenberg, St. Petersburg Times, 13 October 1997)

In 1996, in Istanbul, two trafficked Russian women were thrown to their deaths from a balcony while six of their friends watched. (Ukrainian police, Michael Specter, "Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women," New York Times, 11 January 1998)........

Prostitutes in the southern Turkish city of Adana went on strike to protest what they say is constant police harassment. The women complain that police have put restrictions on playing music, leaning out of windows and talking to customers outside the state-run brothels where they work. Turkey allows licensed prostitutes to trade in approved buildings known as "General Houses." (Anatolian news agency, "Turkish prostitutes on strike over police pressure," Reuters, 4 May 1998)

Gonul Aslan, a 19-year-old woman from the southeastern province of Urfa was strangled and thrown into a river for "dishonouring" her family by eloping with a lover. Her father, husband and uncles planned her murder. Gonul was married two months previously in an unofficial Islamic ceremony to her paternal aunt's son, Saban, to whom she had been promised when a baby. She survived the attack. (Amberin Zaman, 1998)

Turkish prisons often force virginity testing on female prisoners, saying the exams reduce allegations of rape by guards. Human rights groups say the tests are a way of harassing female political prisoners. ("German woman protests forced virginity test in Turkish prison," Associated Press, 20 August 1998)

A German women subjected to a forced virginity test while in prison will not be allowed by Turkish prosecutors to sue prison officials. Eva Junckhe was arrested in October 1997 on charges of belonging to an outlawed Kurdish rebel group. She has been locked up in a prison in southeastern Turkey pending a verdict in her trial. Junckhe claims to have been forcibly examined by doctors two weeks after her arrest. Her lawyer, Eren Keskin, said the chief state security court prosecutor for the southeastern city of Van rejected an application for a lawsuit. If a renewed application is denied, Junckhe will take her protest to the European Court of Human Rights. ("German woman protests forced virginity test in Turkish prison," Associated Press, 20 August 1998)

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