TURKEY’S ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was today accused of posing a danger to women, with 50 murdered in August as femicide continues to rise.

Latest figures collated by the We Will Stop Femicide Platform (KCDP) found that at least 27 women were killed by men in August, while 23 women died “in suspicious circumstances.”

While Turkey does not record statistics on femicide, the group collects data based on media and police reports. It warns of a worrying trend of rising murders and violence against women.

Many women’s organisations and opposition politicians insist it has been triggered by AKP’s plans to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, which aims to counter violence against women.

A number of high-profile cases, including the murder of 27-year-old Kurdish student Pinar Gultekin, have led to campaigners warning that Turkey is becoming “a slaughterhouse for women.”

Nearly 60 per cent of last month’s femicides occurred in women’s own homes with a further 19 per cent taking place in the street.

The murderers were all men known to their victims including husbands, former partners, brothers and sons, KCDP said.

The platform warned that “violence will continue to increase unless it is determined by whom and why the women were killed” and unless the perpetrators are brought to justice.

Journalist and women’s rights activist Gozde Cagri told the Star: “They want to annihilate us. The Turkish state is a threat to women, animals, journalists, children, nature, history.

“There is nothing left they can ruin.”

The Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign is hosting a Zoom meeting, Defend Women’s Lives in Turkey and Kurdistan, at 7pm on Thursday September 3 ahead of a day of action including a vigil at the Turkish embassy.