Turkey adopts reform package to end violence against women, health workers

The Turkish parliament on Thursday adopted a reform package to end the violence against women and health workers.

According to the reform package, aggravated life imprisonment will be imposed if the crime of deliberate murder is committed against a woman.

The perpetrator's formal attitudes and behaviors during the trial will not be taken into account as grounds for a discretionary discount.

Actions that qualify as persistent pursuit will be considered crimes.

Crimes of deliberate injury against women and health workers will also be included in the index crimes for arrest.

Last year, the UN said a woman or a girl is killed by someone in their family every 11 minutes across the world.

"In 2020, 47,000 women and girls worldwide died at the hands of intimate partners or other family members, according to new data released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)," said Ghada Waly, the head of the UNODC.

"Despite accounting for only one-fifth of homicide victims overall, 58% of victims of intimate and family homicide are women and girls," Waly also said.