In today's societies, many women are exposed to violence by men. There is no doubt that the victims of this violence are not only women, but also men. However, the most important thing that we cannot object to is that the main victims of these acts of violence are women.
It is included in many international conventions that this type of violence is a violation of human rights. Although the state is a party to these conventions, it has a positive obligation to take the necessary measures to prevent the violation of these rights by others, and a negative obligation to ensure that these rights cannot be violated by the states. Therefore, the state becomes obliged to prevent violence and to protect the victims of violence.
The abused woman syndrome is a concept used to describe the psychological state of women who are constantly exposed to physical, psychological or sexual violence by their spouse or partner. This concept is also accepted as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder. In criminal law, the traumatized woman syndrome refers to a woman who is constantly subjected to violence to kill her abusive partner or spouse. This syndrome is a desperation experienced by women who have been subjected to violence, and it may also occur as a result of the state's failure to fulfill its positive obligations within the scope of the struggle against women.
Courts of case law countries accept the abused woman syndrome as a reason that reduces or removes criminal responsibility. Although it is not directly accepted as a legal defense reason by the courts, it can be evaluated as a reason that removes the unjust provocation, legitimate defense or imputation. In Turkish law, there are criticisms as well as opinions that this syndrome can be evaluated within the scope of legitimate defense. Practitioners should ask themselves why the women who are constantly exposed to violence choose to kill their abusive spouses/partners instead of going to the authorities because of this violence. As an answer to this question, it would be more appropriate to evaluate the situation based on the psychology of the woman who has the traumatized woman syndrome, rather than evaluating how a person who thinks objectively and rationally will react when faced with such an attack.
Abused Woman Syndrome and Its History
One of the first names that come to mind when we say battered woman syndrome, Dr. It is Lenore Walker. This syndrome, by Walker from the 1970s, is based on two theories that the victim of violence killed the perpetrator as a result of the psychological distress she felt and the helplessness she experienced. These theories are; women's "violence cycle" and "learned helplessness" theory. Walker based these theories on research, experiments and especially learned helplessness theory by Martin Seligman et al. in 1967.
Seligman et al. conducted two separate experiments using three groups of dogs: control, escape and helplessness. In the first stage of the experiment, the dogs in the escape and helplessness groups were placed in the experimental box and given a shock. Although the dogs in the escape group somehow learned to stop the shock; those in the helplessness group failed. In the second stage of the experiment, they put all three groups in the experiment box and also applied escape-avoidance training to these three groups. Before applying the shock, a warning is sent indicating that the shock will come. Within a few minutes after this warning was given, those who jumped out of the box got rid of the shock, and those who did not. As a result of the experiment, the dogs in the escape group and the dogs in the control group got rid of the shock by jumping from the box, while the dogs in the helplessness group failed to escape. Although they knew that the dogs in the helplessness group would get rid of the shock when they jumped from that box and would be harmed if they did not jump out of the box, they did not prefer to jump from the box and waited for the shock. Seligman named the situation that emerged as a result of this experiment as "learned helplessness".
The traumatized woman syndrome proposed by Walker consists of a three-stage cycle of violence and this cycle reveals learned helplessness. By applying these stages to the theory of "learned helplessness", she tried to explain why women who were subjected to violence failed to escape from the perpetrators.6 In the first stage, also called the tension stage, the man begins to increase the tension in the relationship and the efforts of the woman to reduce the tension are inconclusive. There is also mild physical violence at this stage.
The second stage of the cycle, the "acute abuse stage", includes more severe physical violence than the first stage; even sexual violence was added to this physical violence. This stage is followed by the stage in which the perpetrator's apologies and regrets take place. The third stage ends with the man's resumption of violence. Although it is unclear how long these phases will last, the phases follow each other like a vicious circle. Although these stages differ for each woman who is exposed to violence, what stands out in theory is that the violence experienced by the traumatized woman becomes a part of her life. Therefore, the woman who is the victim of violence accepts herself in an attack that may come at any time. According to Walker, the woman who is exposed to violence accepts this violence because violence becomes inevitable for her. This situation causes women to lose their self-confidence and as a result of the violence they are subjected to, they start to look for the blame in themselves.