The Ankara Public Chief Prosecution appointed two prosecutors under the roof of the Application Office for crimes related to violence against women.

Ankara Chief Prosecutor İbrahim Ethem Kuriş appointed Ankara Public Prosecutors Metin Serhantaş (male) and Emine Avcıoğlu (female) to exclusively handle crimes related to Law No.4320 on the Protection of the Family and to violence against women.

The public prosecutors are entitled to request protection measures of the Family Court regarding blamed spouses or other family members. They can furthermore file a court case at the Magistrate or Criminal Court against persons who do not abide by the protection decision.

"Appointed prosecutors must be sensitive on the matter"

The President of the Ankara Bar Association Board for Women Rights, lawyer Elif Uysal Erkol, appreciated the new appointments as an important development. She said that by appointing prosecutors who are sensitive to the matter, the problems experienced in this kind of law suits could be cured.

Erkol explained that correspondent applications will be forwarded to these two prosecutors.

"The crucial point is that the prosecutors show a certain grade of sensitivity. Their in-service training continues at the same time. It is important to establish connections to institutions that are sensitive towards women, that are doing work on this subject and also provide according training".

Erkol thinks that this will prevent investigations from proceeding too slow and thus helps to open trials quicker.

"Violence against women has been on the agenda for a long time but nothing had been done in practice until now. In this aspect, it is an important development. Some prosecutors ask questions that make the women feel guilty. The new application can prevent this sort of situation".

"One male, one female prosecutor"

Chief Prosecutor Kuriş said in a statement made to Hürriyet newspaper that this application emerged from the recent increase of incidents of violence against women and the pursuit to control such incidents. "Both prosecutors grew into the subject and have a genuine interest. We wanted one of them to be a woman so that the female victims can establish a relation more easily". (ÇT/VK)