By Başak Şelik
Turkey’s Ministry of Justice has launched a series of operations under the banner “Ailem Güvende” (“My Family Is Safe”), resulting in legal proceedings against 162 people, nine associations and 13 businesses across 15 provinces.
The investigations, coordinated by the Chief Public Prosecutors’ Offices in Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Aydın and Mersin, have also led to access restrictions on numerous social media accounts and websites. LGBTQ+ associations and activists have been among those targeted in the operations.
In a statement concerning the operations, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said the investigation was aimed at preventing “children and minors from being directed towards issues of sexual orientation and gender identity without regard to their age and developmental level; preventing such activities from being normalised in society; and protecting the best interests of children, the institution of the family and society’s shared moral values.”
Websites and social media accounts belonging to LGBTQ+ organisations have also been blocked as part of the operations. In Ankara, an operation targeting the Kaos GL Association resulted in the detention of members of its executive and supervisory boards, while the organisation’s office was searched.
Women Killed in the Homes Where They Were Supposed to Be Safe
Yet at a time when the rhetoric of “protecting the family” has moved to the forefront of public policy, data on women’s safety within their families and homes paint a very different picture.
According to the figures, 280 women were killed in 2021, 334 in 2022, 315 in 2023, 394 in 2024 and 294 in 2025. In total, 1,617 women were killed over five years.
A striking proportion of these women were killed in their own homes.
In 2021, 178 women were killed at home, followed by 209 in 2022, 205 in 2023, 226 in 2024 and 180 in 2025. Altogether, 998 women were killed in their homes during the five-year period — approximately 62 percent of all women killed.
Broken down by year, 64 percent of femicides in 2021 took place in the home, compared with 63 percent in 2022, 65 percent in 2023, 57 percent in 2024 and 61 percent in 2025.
Women Were Most Often Killed by Men Closest to Them
The data on perpetrators are equally striking.
Of the 280 women killed in 2021, 124 were killed by their husbands, 37 by their partners, 21 by former husbands, 16 by relatives, 13 by their fathers, 11 by their sons and six by their brothers.
In 2022, 154 women were killed by their husbands, 35 by their partners, 27 by former partners, 26 by relatives, 19 by former husbands, 17 by their fathers, 10 by their sons and six by their brothers.
In 2023, 41 percent of the women killed were murdered by their husbands. Thirty of those women were reportedly in the process of divorcing their killers at the time of their deaths.
Of the 394 women killed in 2024, 166 were killed by their husbands, 45 by their partners, 31 by their fathers, 30 by former husbands, 29 by someone they knew, 25 by relatives, 23 by former partners, 22 by their sons and seven by their brothers.
The We Will Stop Femicides Platform (KCDP) reported that 280 women that year were killed by husbands, fathers, sons or other relatives.
In 2025, of the 294 women killed, 104 were killed by their husbands, 32 by former husbands, 28 by relatives, 28 by partners, 25 by someone they knew, 24 by former partners, 18 by their sons, 14 by their fathers and seven by their brothers.
According to the Platform, at least 203 women were killed by family members in 2025.
The Pattern Continued in the First Eight Months of 2026
The first eight months of 2026 brought little change.
According to KCDP data, 150 women were killed during the first six months of the year. Another 25 were killed in July and 22 in August, bringing the total for the first eight months of 2026 to 197 women.
Of these, 117 — or 59 percent — were killed in their homes.
Among the 197 women killed, 84 were killed by their husbands, 20 by their partners, 13 by former husbands and eight by former partners. Another 14 were killed by relatives, 11 by their fathers, nine by their sons and three by their brothers.
This means that 162 of the 197 women killed during the first eight months of 2026 — 82 percent — were killed by a husband, former husband, current or former partner, or another family member.
Suspicious Deaths of Women Add to the Toll
KCDP also separately monitors what it describes as “suspicious deaths of women”: cases in which it has not been conclusively established whether a woman was murdered or in which the perpetrator remains unknown.
According to the Platform, there were 215 such deaths in 2021, 245 in 2022, 250 in 2023, 259 in 2024 and 297 in 2025.
That amounts to 1,266 suspicious deaths of women between 2021 and 2025.
When these cases are considered alongside recorded femicides, the number of women whose deaths were recorded in the two categories during the five-year period reaches 2,883.
Women Killed Despite Protection Orders
The records of perpetrators add another troubling dimension to the figures.
In 2025, the killers of 39 women reportedly had previous criminal records. During the first six months of 2026, 15 women were killed by men with criminal records. Perpetrators had previous criminal records in 10 percent of femicides in 2023 and 14 percent in 2022.
Protection orders did not always prevent killings.
In 2023, 28 women were killed despite having protection orders. Twenty women killed in 2024 had protection orders in force at the time of their deaths, while the corresponding figure for 2025 was 23.
During the first six months of 2026, eight women were killed while protection or preventive measures under Turkey’s Law No. 6284 were in place.
Of the 334 women killed in 2022, at least 23 reportedly had restraining or protection orders, while 25 had previously filed complaints with the police or prosecutors.
Turkey’s Withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention
The Istanbul Convention, which places comprehensive obligations on states to combat violence against women and domestic violence, was signed by Turkey in 2012 and entered into force in the country in 2014.
The Convention defines violence against women as both a human rights violation and a form of discrimination. It requires states to prevent violence, protect victims, investigate and prosecute perpetrators, and develop comprehensive policies to address gender-based violence.
On March 20, 2021, Turkey announced by presidential decision that it would withdraw from the Istanbul Convention. The withdrawal took effect on July 1, 2021, making Turkey the first state party to leave the Convention.
Following the withdrawal, one of the principal legal instruments for protecting women from violence in Turkey remained Law No. 6284 on the Protection of the Family and Prevention of Violence Against Women.
The figures compiled by the We Will Stop Femicides Platform underline just how critical the effective implementation of such protection mechanisms remains to safeguarding women’s right to life.
TLF Editor’s Note
This article was originally published in Turkish by journalist Başak Şelik on the T24 news website on September 14, 2026. Given the sensitivity and clear public-interest importance of the subject, The Levant Files has decided to make the article available to its international readership in English translation, preserving the original reporting, argument and statistical data as closely as possible.
The Turkish expression “Ailem Güvende” literally means “My Family Is Safe.” It is the name given to the operations described in this article. For international readers unfamiliar with Turkey’s current political and social context, the significance of the name lies in the contrast examined by the author: while state authorities invoke the protection of children, the family and “shared moral values” in operations targeting LGBTQ+ organisations and activists, femicide data indicate that the home and intimate or family relationships remain major settings for lethal violence against women.
The Levant Files acknowledges Başak Şelik as the author of the original reporting and T24 as its original publisher. We commend Şelik for her research and thank her and her colleagues at T24 for their journalistic work. The original Turkish article, together with its accompanying visual material, can be accessed through T24.