President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted female village mukhtars from across the country on Tuesday on the occasion of International Women's Day. Addressing the event held at the Presidential Complex in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan lauded Turkey's progress in terms of women's rights and decried acts of violence toward women.

"Women are one-half of a whole. We can never accept women to be discriminated against due solely to their gender and be exposed to violence. Our faith, our culture, our Constitution require us to attach the value they deserved to women. Unfortunately, we have seen practices contradicting these," he told hundreds of female administrators of neighborhoods and villages. He was referring to discrimination toward headscarf-wearing women before, during and after the notorious 1997 coup. The president noted that they restored the right to education for women who were deprived of this right for wearing headscarves.

"Though the Constitution gives the right to work to everyone regardless of gender, women were deprived of this right in the public sector but we reinstated this right," Erdoğan said, noting that they made affirmative action for women a part of the Constitution.

Domestic violence and violence toward women dominated the president's address as he denounced lenient sentences for perpetrators. "We are naturally on the side of women in cases of violence. Domestic violence is no longer a crime that is investigated only if the plaintiff files a complaint," he noted. The president expressed his disappointment over the release of a man involved in the stabbing of "sister Özlem" three months after the incident. "I found out that sister Özlem was stabbed 23 times by this immoral, despicable man who was released three months later. Thank God, I later learned that this vile man was arrested again. I will personally follow this case," he said. Erdoğan was referring to the stabbing of a woman in the northern province of Tokat by her husband, S.A., who she sought a divorce from last year. The victim and her father were stabbed but survived with injuries while S.A. was arrested on charges of attempted manslaughter. Three months later, his lawyer applied for release with judiciary control, which the court approved, citing a "long" detention period. "How could you release such a person?" Erdoğan said, criticizing the ruling and assuring that justice will ultimately prevail.

Lenient sentences for perpetrators of domestic violence, based on the severity of the incidents and the controversial "good behavior" of defendants, have stirred public outcries in a number of cases. Though laws are tough in such cases, their loose interpretation by judges and prosecutors is often blamed for reduced sentences.

In his speech, Erdoğan highlighted a new bill that would aggravate the sentences in such cases, increase minimum sentences, end the "good behavior" reduction and redefine the criminalization of stalking.