The issue of honour based violence has been widely debated in the field of gender studies. A great deal of previous feminist research into honour-based violence has approached the issue as gender-based violence which aims to control women’s lives, bodies and sexuality. Although various studies have explored state and legal responses to such crimes to show their discriminatory nature few studies that have addressed this issue in Turkey.
This seminar considers the issue of honour killings with special attention to the legal responses to these crimes. Based on High Court criminal cases of honour killings in Turkey, Dr. Durbas will specifically examine to what extend the actions of women and girls are regarded as provocative by defendants and/or their family members in order to show the gendered approaches of the Turkish state in dealing with honour killings in particular, and gender based violence in the family in general.
Dr. Durbas argues that the Turkish state is implicated in reproducing these types of crime and patriarchal gender roles. In conclusion, this project, by examining the judges practices in dealing with crimes, helps to recognise the role of state in dealing with issues of crimes against women, gender and justice, which is rarely acknowledged.
About the Speaker:
Bingul Durbas is a Visiting Fellow in the Power and Popular Politics Cluster at IDS, working on issues around gender and violence. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Sussex. Her primary research project explored gender based violence in general and honour based violence in particular, and state responses to these types of crime in Turkey.
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