Country Profile Türkiye

General Country Information

Summary

There are three national women’s helplines in Türkiye, available 24/7, free of charge, and offering multilingual support. There are also five other helplines supporting survivors of violence against women. There are 150 women-only shelters in the country with a total of 3,677 beds, and 157 women’s centres. Starting in 2024, there are 47 Women’s Medical Support Units for survivors of sexualised violence. The National Action Plan (NAP) on violence against women and girls contains provisions on primary prevention, but state funding, as well as data collection, mostly focus on awareness-raising activities. The state collects data on women’s specialist services, and only limited data is available upon request. Since 2014, no comprehensive official data has been shared with the public regarding the scope of domestic violence.

Women’s Specialist Services

In Türkiye, there are three main helplines providing support in cases of violence. The first one is the national helpline, ALO 183 Hotline for Combating Violence (ALO 183 Şiddetle Mücadele Hattı, tel.: +90 183; +90 5493810183 for video calls; +90 5011830183 for WhatsApp chat), which is operated and financed by the Ministry of Family and Social Services. The hotline is free of charge and available 24/7, meeting the standards of the Istanbul Convention. It offers support in Turkish, Arabic, and Kurdish, and is open to various groups; however, it is not specialised in supporting women survivors of violence. In 2024, it received 235,406 calls, of which 39,781 were from women.

In addition, there is the Emergency Hotline for Domestic Violence (Aile İçi Şiddet Acil Yardım Hattı, tel.: +90 2126569696; +90 5496569696), which is run by the Federation of Women Associations of Türkiye. This helpline provides support in Turkish, English and Kurdish to survivors of all forms of violence against women, especially domestic violence. It is funded through international funds and donations. In 2024, it received 3,908 calls.

And lastly, there is the Woman Support Line (Kadın Destek hattı, tel.: +90 4448086), which is run and funded by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and provides support in Turkish, Kurdish, English and Arabic for all forms of violence against women. Between November 2020 and November 2024, it received 7,241 calls.

Additionally, there are five other helplines in Türkiye, which provide support to survivors of violence against women. The Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation (tel.: +90 2122925231) provides social, legal, psychological and shelter support, and received 3,433 calls from 1,154 women in 2024. The KAMER Foundation runs a helpline (tel.: +90 5306644410) as well as social, legal, and psychological support. It also currently provides disaster relief support. The third helpline is provided by The Foundation for Women’s Solidarity (tel.: +90 3124304005 and +90 3124320782). This helpline received 916 calls in 2024 and offers social, legal, and psychological support. The Women’s Solidarity Foundation’s helpline (tel.: +90 5464786917) provides social, legal, and psychological support. Finally, the Mor Salkım Women’s Solidarity Association’s helpline (tel.: +90 5310338844) provides social, legal, and psychological support.

There are 150 women-only shelters in Türkiye, with 3,677 beds. The current capacity does not meet the overall needs of women, due to the inadequate conditions of shelters and the lack of space, often resulting in declined referrals. In Türkiye, all women who apply for a shelter must stay at “First Step Stations”, which tend to be overcrowded and provide basic accommodation and meals, but often with no additional social support. Women stay in these stations for a period of 15 days or more. Afterwards, the staff decides whether a woman needs shelter or not. Security measures are often inadequate, as some law enforcement officers provide information about the survivor’s location to the perpetrators. Shelters are available 24/7, and women are not expected to pay for accommodation. In state-run shelters, women can stay up to six months with a possible extension to one year. In Mor Çatı‘s shelter, the duration of stay is determined according to the women’s needs and conditions. The types of in-house services provided by shelters are casework, counselling/psychological support, referrals/collaboration with other services, and practical and legal advice.

Most women-only shelters in Türkiye can accommodate refugee women and homeless women, while some shelters can also be accessed by and are accessible to women with physical, cognitive and sensory disabilities, women with substance abuse issues, women with older sons and women with children with disabilities. No shelters can support unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. There are no state-run, women-only shelters in Türkiye that accept women with uncertain residence permits or undocumented women, women aged 60 and above, or transgender women who have not undergone gender-affirming surgery and therefore do not hold the corresponding identity card. The only independent shelter in Türkiye, operated by Mor Çatı, does not impose such restrictive admission criteria. There are two shelters run by the Directorate of Migration specifically for migrant women, although they are mostly for those with official residence permits. Aside from women-only shelters, there are no other shelter facilities in the country that provide support specifically for violence against women.

Out of the 149 state-run shelters, 112 are run by the Ministry of Family and Social Services, 35 are run by municipalities, and two are run by the Directorate of Migration. These shelters are run with public funds. Only one shelter is independently run by a women’s NGO, the Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation, and is funded by donations and international project funds. This shelter operates with a feminist approach. In some municipalities, there are also some promising examples of feminist methods and practices, largely driven by the personal initiatives of the women working within such shelters. Women-only shelters are located in all regions. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors to shelters were domestic, physical and sexualised violence. In 2024, a total of 37,454 women and 22,136 children received services from women’s shelters affiliated with the Ministry. Additionally, in the same year, 1,872 foreign women and 2,222 accompanying children, amounting to 4,094 individuals, were provided with services in these shelters.

According to the data available, as of 2023, there were 157 women’s shelters in Türkiye, 73 only for women, and 84 for all survivors of gender-based violence. Centres run by women’s NGOs are 60, Violence Prevention and Monitoring Centres (ŞÖNİM) affiliated with the Ministry of Family and Social Services manage 84 centres in 81 provinces, and at least 13 municipalities run women’s centres. Women’s centres provide different types of in-house services, although this might differ according to their resources. Services include counselling and psychological support, legal advice, financial and social welfare support, housing advice, employment, referrals and collaboration with other services, representation at court/police/social services, and residential support services. Women’s centres also provide specialist support for survivors of sexualised violence, namely needs assessment, specialist psychological care and legal advice.

In terms of accessibility, social support centres of The Ministry of Family and Social Services – not specifically dedicated to violence cases, but hosting several violence focal points – are accessible to older women, unaccompanied minor girls, most are equipped to support refugee women, women with physical, cognitive and sensory disabilities, transgender women, survivors (at risk) of forced marriage and honour-based violence. Nevertheless, although these groups of survivors can access these centres, the support provided is generally not grounded in specific training or specialised expertise, and no data is available on their number. There are various institutions run by municipalities or NGOs supporting specific groups, but only a few of them are specifically designed to support women who have experienced violence.

Centres run by the ministry and municipalities have public funds, while NGOs have different international funding sources and donations. Women’s centres are located in most regions in Türkiye.

In Türkiye, there are 47 Women’s Medical Support Units currently active in 39 provinces, mostly provided by hospitals, health institutions and law enforcement. The 2024 Action Plan of the Ministry of Health planned a pilot project to establish Women’s Medical Support Units in selected provinces. These units are meant to operate 24/7 within hospitals that have obstetrics and gynaecology departments or emergency medicine clinics and are intended to include specialists in obstetrics and gynaecology to support women survivors of sexualised violence. According to the Ministry, these services are expected to provide medical interventions, consultations from relevant specialists and the collection of forensic evidence. Data collection reportedly began in April 2024 in facilities where the establishment process was completed, and 487 cases were reported in 2024. However, while these figures and plans reflect the Ministry’s official framework, from the perspective of women’s NGOs, a systematic and consistent implementation of this model has not yet been observed in practice.
Additionally, several feminist and LGBTQI+ organisations provide specialised support for survivors of sexualised violence, including migrants, and are funded through international funds and donations.

In Türkiye, public authorities only disclose the number of people reached through awareness-raising activities, such as educational sessions, conferences, and panels for different groups. No other public data is available. In 2024, a total of 297,107 people took part in these activities, including public officials, citizens, village heads, university students, conscripts and Turkish Armed Forces personnel, and gendarmerie and law enforcement officers. According to state statistics, since 2007, more than 4.5 million people have been reached. Under the National Action Plan, different awareness-raising activities are carried out, but there is no monitoring or evaluation of these activities, so their effectiveness is unknown. Further information is in the Parliamentary Commission Report, produced by a committee reviewing measures to prevent violence and discrimination against women. This report takes a family-centred approach, avoids the term “gender equality”, and does not address gender inequality as the root cause of violence. It focuses on issues such as addiction, reflecting a depoliticised view of the problem. Data from public institutions covers primary prevention activities such as training for judicial personnel by the Ministry of Justice, anger management for perpetrators under probation and convicted offenders, brochures for women on legal rights, and non-violent communication training for children from the preschool level.

Türkiye’s 2021–2025 National Action Plan on violence against women and girls contains provisions on primary prevention, mainly awareness-raising and training for public service providers, as well as perpetrator programmes like anger management and rehabilitation. The National Action Plan also avoids the term “gender equality”. The Parliamentary Commission Report also includes a series of recommendations on primary prevention, such as educating women on legal rights, running national and local campaigns, and addressing economic, digital, and campus-based violence. It also calls for sanctions against those promoting hatred and discrimination against women online, stricter regulation of digital games, and more perpetrator rehabilitation.

There is no official definition of primary prevention in Türkiye or in the National Action Plan. State funding mainly supports awareness-raising, practitioner training, anger management, and school-based prevention programmes. None of these activities is effectively monitored or evaluated. NGOs, including women’s, feminist, LGBTQI+, and children’s organisations, also carry out prevention work, usually without using the term “primary prevention”. They inform women about their rights, raise awareness about male violence and the link between gender equality and violence, and run workshops for children and youth. Beneficiaries include the general public, minors, women, men, and LGBTQI+ people. Some groups, particularly LGBTQI+ individuals, are only addressed by NGO-led activities due to the state’s “anti-gender” stance in public activities.

NGOs and women’s groups cannot operate in public schools because their work is based on gender equality. As of May 2025, the Directorate General of Family and Community Services has banned the use of concepts such as “gender”, “comprehensive sexuality education”, and “gender equality” in relevant departments. This policy restricts civil society and women’s groups by framing their initiatives as incompatible with current educational guidelines.