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“Eat sugar and speak sweetly is a Kurdish and Turkish saying”, explains Turkish author Fatma. “It means only talking about nice things – not mentioning what’s really happening.” Like many Turkish women, she was engaged to a distant relative. But unlike them, she ran away shortly before the wedding and published a book criticising forced marriages. Fatma has dedicated her life to helping other victims.

“In our culture, they say women are men’s honor”, explains 17 year old Sultana. “When I turned 12, I was no longer allowed to go outside and play. I couldn’t enter the room when we had guests – all these restrictions.” At 14, she violated the boundaries set by her parents by falling in love with a friend. Her parents repeatedly beat her. Driven to desperation, she took an overdose. “Thank God, I’m still alive. But then I knew I didn’t want to live like that any more.”

By running away, Sultana has shamed her family. “My father isn’t a real man anymore because he hasn’t got his family under control.” She lives in fear that her family will take revenge by murdering her. “My mother told me stories about a women who ran away with her boyfriend and had children. When the parents found out, they took the children away and killed them both.”

Attitudes are slowly changing. In Turkey, the prospect of European Union membership has led to new laws given equal rights to women. But for countless women, it is too late.