Employees of Istanbul Yedikule Chest Diseases Hospital gathered in the hospital yard to raise their voices against harassment at work. After nurse H.Z. was sexually assaulted by assistant doctor Semih Erduhan at Yedikule Chest Diseases Hospital, health workers stated that harassment cases increased in the hospital and called for action. Female employees explained that harassment cases in the hospital were very frequent.
Women health workers at Yedikule Chest Hospital protested against the sexual violence they were subjected to
Employees of Istanbul Yedikule Chest Diseases Hospital gathered in the hospital yard to raise their voices against harassment at work. After nurse H.Z. was sexually assaulted by assistant doctor Semih Erduhan at Yedikule Chest Diseases Hospital, health workers stated that harassment cases increased in the hospital and called for action. Female employees explained that harassment cases in the hospital were very frequent.
The statement said:
This is a systematic public disclosure and disclosure of the sexual assaults and harassment that have been experienced in our workplace for a long time, and we have not been able to convince victims to come out in order to disclose the assaults.
As early as the week of March 8, when we were trying to express that the sexual assault and violence experienced by women was everywhere at home and in the workplace, public areas and squares were closed to us (by the government). While women were screaming that denying and ignoring would not eliminate attacks against women, our colleague was sexually assaulted by a male perpetrator named assistant Dr. S.E. at the beginning of her shift in this institution.
As we shout for effective punishments and legal arrangements against all kinds of attacks against women, mechanisms that can produce effective and radical solutions are disabled, problems are deepened with show displays, and the audacity and courage of all kinds of attacks on women with impunity policies are further magnified.
We will not give you examples from the world, the country, or even the city we live in to tell you about the attacks on women!
Only in this hospital, even in this public institution, which is actually the place where all kinds of abuse and exploitation against women should happen the least, we are going to expose what kind of torture it is for us women to live and breathe with the events of the last two years with our friends hearing, seeing and witnessing all.We will tell you how systematic attacks and cover-ups day by day turned into the sexual assault of a friend of ours by protecting and encouraging the harasser and the rapist mentality.
In this public institution, a patient who was hospitalized in the intensive care unit within the 2-year period we mentioned was sexually assaulted by the nurse. The employees who witnessed the incident removed this attacker from the area that night and wrote a report about him. However, the administrators of the institution did not remove this person from the workplace as soon as they heard about the incident, or they did not take the report as a reference to an investigation and did not ensure that any negligence and deficiency, if any, were brought to light by those responsible. Or they did not carry this situation, which is a judicial crime, to the relevant channels. Because they knew, as the directors of the institution, such an investigation would also point to them. The administration preferred to remain silent, to cover it up, to be complicit. They did not expose this attack. Our female patient who was attacked exposed the attack three days later, no, you did not hear wrong, exactly three days after being transferred from the intensive care unit to the clinical service, but only as a complainant. This was because the assailant had threatened her that she would not leave the hospital alive if she talked.
Since security measures were not taken in this public institution, our friend, who was a nurse who had started work only two months ago, was attacked with a knife in the Arnavutköy Niyazi Kurtulmuş annex building, which was opened to create the image that relevant and adequate measures were taken in the pandemic but which was two hours away from our central building. Most employees did not even know where this building was, and she was sent home with a leave for six months, and the assault was covered up. We learned months later that our friend had survived this attack by chance, and nobody was investigated or questioned for negligence. Although we said that there was a security weakness, no changes were made in the Hadımköy annex building.
In this institution, in our workplace, where we learned by experience that the name of the institution and its reputation is above everything, the security personnel, that is, the person responsible for the security of all of us, harassed more than one woman, and the women who were harassed informed the supervisors of the institution about their experiences, but they were covered up again. To get the attacker out of sight, he was sent to that annex building, where most employees did not even know the location in the city we mentioned above, and the issue was left to be forgotten. This perpetrator, who received a promotion a few months later, continued to work in Yedikule hospital as the security supervisor.
In this workplace, in this public institution, which prides itself on its decades-old historical identity!A patient’s relative complained to the supervisors of the institution that she was deceived by the nurse on duty at night and dragged into an emotional relationship that turned into sexual intercourse. Again, the perpetrator was taken away from sight, and the event was covered up. It He was not even sent out of sight, he was put to work in a place so comfortable that it could be said that he was rewarded.
In Yedikule – in our famous brand hospital, While the statement of one of our colleague, who was sexually assaulted three days ago, has not yet been revealed yet, we received the following information on the same day and a few hours ago. Again, a female friend of ours has been systematically forced into emotional relations and subjected to harassment for a year. Moreover, she stated that she shared what happened with the hospital director three months ago and that nothing was done. For the first time, we had a female friend who shared what happened with her colleagues herself, asked for solidarity, and said she would do whatever was necessary to expose the assault.
Although we demanded action to be taken about all the attacks we shared with you and the public, and the series of assaults that were covered up, we could not turn what happened into a criminal complaint due to the hesitations of our victim friends about mentioning their names and their reservations about confronting the supervisors of the institution. Since we knew the importance of the woman’s declaration as essential and the effects of the disclosure she may experience, we shared what happened verbally with the supervisors of the institution each time and had discussions about what should be done.
We, as the women of Yedikule, were preparing to share these series of events and negligence to the public in all its dimensions through a female friend who agreed to make a statement about sexual harassment for the first time. However, we were shaken by the new information that our nurse friend was sexually assaulted by Dr. Semih Erduhan hours later on the same day.
Now we ask;
When we are still in the week of March 8, when three or five women are being killed by men every day, and this has turned into a systematic massacre;
When women say they are exposed to all kinds of violence, harassment, and sexual assault at home, on the street, and in the workplace;
Moreover, while we know that disclosure is as difficult for a woman as the attack itself, what is it if not complicity to remain silent about what is happening above?While women want gender equality, why is it not a crime to act with a mind that reproduces the masculine mentality?
When women are screaming that they are being killed, and this has reached the level of genocide, why is ignoring, not taking precautions, and legal procedures that forgive the perpetrators not a crime?Banning public squares and streets for women! What is it if not to discredit women’s just struggle in the eyes of society and to negate women’s quest for equality and freedom?
The constant cover-up of what is happening in this public institution is the best answer to those who accuse women of insulting the state when they rebel because in reality “the men shoot, the state protects the men”?
We know very well how all kinds of violence and attacks against women are covered up and how they are denied by the solidarity and coordination, and commonality of men. We witnessed again that those who remained silent and covered up were also present this time, hours after our friend was attacked. Although other male protagonists knew that this person was a sexual predator, they again protected him instead of doing the right thing. They tried to protect the man’s reputation and career. The attitude of those with the “one-time sexual assault does not count” mentality again paved the way for a woman to be sexually assaulted.
Anyone can be silent; everyone can close their eyes. In fact, everyone may be complicit in their own way. But we will not be silent. Until the last woman expresses the truth and is free, we will continue to struggle with this male chauvinist mind and those who help them.
Our colleague was not only sexually assaulted by the perpetrator named S.E. She is the victim of us hearing but staying silent, seeing but not doing anything, of realizing that even if we do anything, more is needed. We will pursue this case until the end so that the perpetrator receives the punishment. We will never send our friend to the courtroom alone, and we will be with her to the end.
MB Sendika.Org News