Between Saviors and Savages: The Effect of Turkey's Revised Penal Code on the Transformation of Honor Killings into Honor Suicides and Why Community Discourse Is Necessary for Honor Crime Education

Honor killings and honor suicides are culturally motivated causes of deaths of women in Turkey. These honor crimes occur after a family member violates a social or moral norm, such as premarital relationship, that brings shame and dishonor to the family. Both the Turkish media and general scholarship on honor killings argue that due to the revised Turkish Penal Code of 2004, which increased sentences for honor killing perpetrators and their family members, families have shifted from honor killings to honor suicides, encouraging the females to take their own lives as to minimize the penalization. This article seeks to rebut that notion of causal linkage through careful analysis of statistical data while offering alternate explanations that expose the deeper issue of the Turkish honor culture.