ANKARA, Oct 1 (AFP) - When hundreds of women marched on parliament last month against plans to criminalize adultery, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was so angry he called them "marginals" who do not represent the true Turkish woman.
Days later, women scored a major victory in this male-dominated, Muslim society: yielding to European Union pressure, Erdogan's government dropped plans to jail errant spouses and rushed through parliament a reform package that introduced ground-breaking rights for women.
"It is a triumph for us, a great leap forward," said Hulya Gulbahar, one of the leaders of a platform of women activists who fought a fierce battle for the amendments to the penal code reform.
Turkish women have been part of the political life since the founding father of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, granted them suffrage rights in 1934, years before women in France, Italy, Belgium, Greece and Switzerland, for instance, were allowed to vote.
In urban areas they are today emancipated to the point of claiming jobs as football referees and fighter pilots.
The majority, however, is still in the grip of die-hard patriarchal traditions that, in some regions, go as far as to approve "honor killings" -- the murder of female family members perceived as unvirtuous.
The women's movement in the country has grown stronger over the years, but discriminatory provisions enshrined in outdated laws came under the spotlight only after the EU warned Turkey that gender equality was as crucial to its membership bid as political issues.
"The EU process had an accelerating impact," Gulbahar said. "We would expect the EU to make even clearer reminders to the government in the future."
Among other amendments, the new penal code introduced life terms for perpetrators of "honor killings," criminalized spouse rape, defined systematic domestic violence as a kind of torture and toughened penalties for incest.
It also weeded out from the books an infamous article that allowed rapists to go unpunished if they agreed to marry their victim.
For some activists, however, the changes are just a small part of the job.
"The problem in our region is that people do not respect the official laws," said Nebahat Akkoc from Diyarbakir, the biggest city of the mainly Kurdish southeast. "We have to change mentalities and ensure that the laws are implemented."
A former primary school teacher, Akkoc is a genuine taboo-breaker -- she is the founder and head of a women's center which has rebelled against the "honor killings" that plague the region where feudal traditions still prevail, and where 55 percent of women are illiterate.
Under the much-decried practice of "honor killings," relatives convene a so-called "family council" and name a clan member to murder a woman relative considered to have stained their honor, usually by engaging in an extra-marital affair.
But the practice has gone as far as killing women for conversing with strangers or requesting a song on the radio -- even for being the victims of rape.
In one chilling incident this year, a 22-year-old woman who bore a child out of wedlock was shot dead by her brothers in her hospital sickbed where she was under treatment after having survived a first murder attempt by her siblings.
Akkoc's center, KA-MER -- an acronym for Women's Center -- has so far helped protect 45 threatened women. It has failed to save two others.
Activists hope the new laws will help their struggle.
"The job is not over," Gulbahar said. "Our eye is now on the judges. How they will implement the amendments is very important."
Although they succeeded in imposing most of their demands in the new penal code, women's groups have vowed to fight on for a few other amendments they failed to have enacted.
Among them: a total ban on virginity tests, once ordered on women almost at will by any authority and now subject to court order.