Police guard 9000 women against domestic violence in Turkey

Police provided safeguard to 8,908 women to prevent domestic violence in Turkey, said Turkish Family and Social Policies Ministry on Thursday. Turkey's southern province of Adana has been on the top of the list with 2,315 women under police protection, followed by western city of Izmir with 1,372 women and by central province of Kayseri with 1,350 women. While police provided safeguard to 245 women in Istanbul the number is 42 in Ankara. There is no application for safeguard in cities of Bilecik, Bolu, Corum, Hakkari, Kars, Kastamonu, Malatya, Mardin and Siirt. The lowest request for police safeguard is in Rize, Nigde, Karabuk, Erzincan, Duzce, Diyarbakir, Burdur, Bingol, Bartin, Afyonkarahisar and Adiyaman. The number is only 1 in these provinces. The total nationwide number of precautionary measure is 64,136. The highest number is for the women living in Istanbul with 13,542 and the lower number is in Bingol which is only 1. Turkish police officers have been trained to struggle against domestic violence. The total number of participants to this training is 40,000. Turkey's Directorate General of Security (EGM) plans to train 25,000 more staff this year. EGM aims to increase the awareness of the police staff struggling with domestic violence as well as realizing new projects enable protection of women against violence. In this context EGM created a device called 'panic button'. This device is used to inform police when a woman is exposed to domestic violence. For now 'panic button' devices are only used in Bursa and Adana.