Maternal Filicide in Turkey

Filicide occurs in every socioeconomic stratum around the world. This study was conducted to evaluate motives, psychopathological aspects, and socio‐demographic factors of 74 filicide cases of women in Turkey. Mean age of mothers, most of whom committed infanticide, was 26 years, and breakdown of cr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of forensic sciences 2015-01, Vol.60 (s1), p.S143-S151
Main Authors: Eke, Salih Murat, Basoglu, Saba, Bakar, Bulent, Oral, Gokhan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Child
Child Abuse - statistics & numerical data
child homicide
Child, Preschool
Child, Unwanted
Children & youth
crime
Female
filicide
Forensic anthropology
Forensic Psychiatry
forensic science
Homicide - psychology
Homicide - statistics & numerical data
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Marital Status
maternal filicide
Mental Disorders - complications
Middle Aged
Mothers
Mothers - psychology
Mothers - statistics & numerical data
Motivation
motive
Murders & murder attempts
Pregnancy
Pregnancy, Unwanted
Psychopathology
Rape
Turkey
Young Adult
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Summary:Filicide occurs in every socioeconomic stratum around the world. This study was conducted to evaluate motives, psychopathological aspects, and socio‐demographic factors of 74 filicide cases of women in Turkey. Mean age of mothers, most of whom committed infanticide, was 26 years, and breakdown of criminal offenses are as follows: “to get rid of unwanted babies” (24.3%), “acute psychotic‐type filicide” (21.6%), “fatal child abuse and neglect” (17.6%), “to get revenge” (12.2%), “protect the lonely child from the harm and badness after suicide” (10.8%), and “pity” (9.5%) motives. Results showed that maternal filicide cannot be reduced to only mental instability or environmental factors and indicates deficiencies in the capacity of the mothers' role in connecting with their child and with parenting skills. Finally, with regard to defendants' motives, similar factors that contribute to committing maternal filicide should be considered while making an assessment of the data and determining employee risk groups.
ISSN:0022-1198
1556-4029
DOI:10.1111/1556-4029.12560