JINHA

ISTANBUL - Women gathered outside the courthouse in Istanbul yesterday to call for justice for Jesca Nankabirwa, the Ugandan migrant and textile worker killed in September in Istanbul.

Jesca, 39, worked in a textile factory in the Sarıgazi neighborhood of Istanbul. Her lifeless body was found on September 6, 2014. Jesca had been sexually assaulted.

At the most recent hearing in her case, which took place yesterday in Istanbul, the defendant has asked to be acquitted. His lawyer claims that Jesca "fell" from a window after a disagreement in a "sex bazaar." The next hearing will take place on September 4, with the judge refusing the defendant's request to be released from custody until the next hearing.

The Women Without Borders Initiative, who gathered outside the courthouse, said the case was just one example of the brutal discrimination imposed on migrant women in Turkey.

"Jesca was killed because she was a migrant woman, treated as worthless by this country's laws," said Reyhan Toplu of Women Without Borders.

(sö-mı/dc/fk/cm)