Ozgecan Aslan was a 20 years old student of Medicine, who has been murdered because she stopped a man who wanted to rape her. It happened the 11 February 2015 in the Turkish city of Mercin. This event deeply touched the public opinion.



UN Women provides impressive statistics about the violence against women. Just to mention some of them:

- 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence;
- around 120 million girls worldwide (slightly more than 1 in 10) have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives;
- between 40 and 50 per cent of women in European Union countries experience unwanted sexual advances, physical contact or other forms of sexual harassment at work.

Just in Europe, one third of women some form of physical or sexual abuse since the age of 15. And in Turkey last year 300 women have murdered. 
The worst is that in many situation the victims and their families cannot feel protected by the law.

Can something change?

Of course yes. 
And in the case of Ozgecan Aslan something actually changed. During the funeral, the women, usually behind the men in the celebrations, decided to go ahead and take the coffin against the tradition. 

And many protests have been raised all over Turkey. Many men have decided to participate in those protests dressing miniskirts. This was the invitation on Facebook:
“If a miniskirt is responsible for everything, if a miniskirt means immorality and unchastity, if a woman who wears a miniskirt is sending an invitation about what will happen to her, then we are also sending an invitation!”