WER BIST DU, DASS DU SPRICHST?

For women in Turkey who have been abused by the police or military, to speak out in public about what they have endured means taking a huge risk. In Who are you to speak? we hear from five women and transsexuals from Istanbul who have suffered violence, rape and torture and all took the brave step of bearing witness to the crimes they had been subjected to, despite the fear of being rejected by their families and communities: although victims of violence, they are the ones considered "soiled".

As a result of their actions, some of these women faced legal prosecution for "slandering the Turkish state" and all of them have had to deal with the difficult repercussions of their experience, some of them leaving the country for good and seeking exile elsewhere. It is hard for women to lead self-determined lives in a patriarchal society where the ways of dealing with, and attitudes towards, sexual violence have been passed down among women from generation to generation.