Since 2012, Turkey's Law No. 6284 lets courts and police issue rapid protection and preventive orders for domestic-violence survivors, backed by the 24/7 ALO 183 hotline. Orders have surged, but femicide monitoring shows enforcement gaps persist over a decade on.
139,218 orders
Preventive orders issued (2016)
272,870 orders
Preventive orders issued (2021)
1,801 orders
Protective orders issued (2016)
10,401 orders
Protective orders issued (2021)
38 of 307 women
Women killed in 2021 who held an active protective order at time of death (2021)
394 women
Women killed (femicide monitor) (2024)
Details
Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ministry of Justice / ALO 183 Social Support Line, Ministry of Family and Social Services
Period
2012–present
Region (NUTS)
TR51
Keywords
justice, gender-based violence, law enforcement, social services
Context
Turkey's Law No. 6284 on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence against Women (2012) empowers police, prosecutors and courts to issue preventive orders against perpetrators and protective orders for survivors, for up to six months, drawing partly on the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention framework. The 24/7 ALO 183 social-support hotline, run by the Ministry of Family and Social Services, is one of the law's main access points.
Objectives
Provide rapid legal protection mechanisms and a support hotline for domestic-violence survivors.
Activities
Courts and police issue preventive and protective orders; the ALO 183 hotline takes reports of violence and coordinates protection-order requests. UN Women partnered with the Ministry of Justice (2022-2023) to produce an implementation guide for judges and prosecutors aimed at closing enforcement gaps.
Results
Justice Ministry data cited by Human Rights Watch shows preventive orders climbing from 139,218 in 2016 to 272,870 in 2021, and protective orders from 1,801 to 10,401 over the same period. However, Human Rights Watch's 2022 report documents courts routinely failing to sanction breaches, and records that of 307 women killed in 2021, 38 held an active protective order at the time of their death. The civil-society femicide monitor 'We Will Stop Femicide' recorded 394 women killed in 2024, the highest annual total since tracking began, even as Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention in 2021 under political pressure to weaken the law.
Conclusions
A case where a well-designed legal instrument exists and is heavily used, but has not yet delivered the protective outcome it was built for -- a caution against equating order volume with survivor safety.
Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — No independent cost-effectiveness or budget data is published for the order system or the hotline.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — In force since 2012 (13+ years); order volumes have grown steadily but femicide monitoring shows no corresponding reduction in killings, indicating current enforcement design has not closed the gap even over a long implementation horizon.
Staffing & skills
Police, prosecutors and courts (issuing and enforcing orders), ALO 183 hotline staff (Ministry of Family and Social Services), UN Women and Ministry of Justice (2022-2023 implementation-guide project training judges and prosecutors)
Conditions for success
Consistent judicial sanctioning of order breaches
Adequate shelter capacity for survivors
Sustained political commitment to international protection frameworks
Common failure modes
Courts routinely fail to sanction breaches of protective orders (Human Rights Watch, 2022)
Turkey's 2021 withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention undercuts the law's underpinning framework
A record femicide count (394 in 2024) persisted despite record order volumes, showing the mechanism is not preventing fatal violence
Where it fits
Governance type
national law and hotline, multi-agency (justice and social services)
Scale
national
Income level
upper-middle-income
Commonly funded by
National / regional programmes
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
Do you run this practice?
Claim it —
verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
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