> NY Times, November 3, 2000 > > Turkish Women Who See Death as a Way Out > > By DOUGLAS FRANTZ > > BATMAN, Turkey, Nov. 1 - A 22- year-old woman threw herself from the roof > of a seven-story building across from her family's apartment after being > beaten by her parents for wearing a tight skirt. > > A 20-year-old woman who felt trapped in an arranged marriage and isolated > from her family and village hanged herself, leaving behind a 5-month-old > baby and mystified neighbors and relatives. > > A mother of five, worn down by the age of 30 from caring for her husband > and his first wife and cut off from the outside world, hanged herself in > the family barn. Her 65-year- old husband later shrugged and told a > psychologist, "It was her time to go to God." > > These women were casualties of a cultural conflict in a region in > transition and turmoil. Against the backdrop of 15 years of bloody civil > war between the Turkish Army and the separatist Kurds, they were uprooted > from their rural villages and brought to a city where even new buildings > look tired and tattered. > > Instead of a new start,, thousands of women are finding despair, loneliness > and, for a startling number, death, medical experts and sociologists said > in interviews this week. > > The suicide rate among women in southeastern Turkey is twice as high as the > rest of the country and, in a reversal of what happens elsewhere in the > world, women are twice as likely to kill themselves as men. > > In two decades, Turkey has gone from a rural nation to an urban one. > Millions of people packed their belongings onto trucks and buses in search > of a better life in Istanbul and Izmit and Ankara. > > For many the transition has been smooth, but others have lacked the skills > and education to adapt to city life. To help them, the government started a > program this year to lure people back to the villages, with little success > so far. > > Nowhere was the flight more pronounced than here in southeastern Turkey, > the nation's breadbasket and its most conservative region. As villages were > burned and towns were evacuated, hundreds of thousands of people sought > refuge in cities like Batman, Diyarbakir and Sanliurfa. But jobs were > scarce, decent housing unavailable and the old social rules no longer applied. > > "We speak very little about it in my region, but this forced migration > created traumatic stresses," said Aytekin Sir, a psychiatrist at Dicle > University in Diyarbakir, about 50 miles away. "The traditional social > structure was broken, and there was nothing in its place." > > Complete article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/world/03TURK.html > >
