European Liberal Democrats
International Conference on on “Algorithms for Opposing Gender Discrimination: the International Experience”
Moscow, March 12, 2011
Remarks - Ms. Nursuna Memecan (Turkey)
Dear colleagues, distinguished panelists, and friends,
I would to thank the European Liberal Democrats and Yabloko for inviting me to participate in this very timely conference on opposing gender discrimination. I am very happy to be here with all of you.
Today, I would like to describe the Turkish experience of the past decade in improving women’s status andbridging the gender gap. I believe we can easilydefine this decade as a second revolution for women’s rights in Turkey.Before I go into discussing recent developments, I would like to provide a brief historical context about women’s rights so we can better assess where we are today.
Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkish women benefited from reforms that gave them citizenship rights that were non-existent at that time in the Western world. In the 1930s, women were given the right to vote and stand for elections.However, despite the changes in legislation, the implementation did not turn out as expected. Women hardly enjoyed their presence in political life. There was never significant numbers of female members of parliament, governors or mayors, for many years.While the West upgraded the rights of women, Turkish women's rights remained mainly as they were instituted in the 30's.
The Ak Party government got into power in the year 2002. 'Women's rights' was a major item in the Party's political agenda. Many legislative amendments were made and new legislation was introduced. These were supported by various public promotional campaigns and civil society activities. The aim was to empower women by removing obstacles on their way to enjoying their rights, by providing the necessary legislative background to encourage them to participate in social and economic activities, by encouraging them to be active members of the society and by educating them.All of these efforts prioritized a mental shift towards recognizing women as individuals rather than as part of a structure, be it the family, tribe or any kind of association.
I would like to summarize some legal amendments of the past decade that I see as revolutionary in providing the legislative background for women to be recognized as equal and for them to benefit equally from all available opportunities.
The Turkish civil code has been changed to recognize women as equal partners in the family instead of the old version that considered the man to be the head of the household. Therefore, both mothers and fathers now have equal say in the rights of their children and on decision-making for the family.In the new civil code, the clause that demanded permission of the men for women to work and travel has been removed. Although, this wasn't practically being used, the fact that it was there was oppressive.The new code also requires equal sharing of all family property acquired during marriage upon divorce. This definitely brought justice to many women who wanted to get out of marriage but couldn't because of economic deficiencies.
The penal code changes that were adopted in 2004 were even more drastic. Many changes had to be incorporated into it as the whole mentality that recognized women as the property of their husbands has now been changed to recognizing women as individuals. Prior to the change,women’s bodies were seen as the property of men, and sexual crimes against women as crimes against the honor of the family.
All references to chastity, morality, shame, public customs or decency as excuses in crimes were eliminated. The new code defines sexual crimes and treats them as violations of women’s individual rights and not as crimes against society, the family or public morality. It criminalizes rape in marriage, eliminates sentence reductions for honor killings, even doubles the crime for domestic violence offenders, including fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters who actively take part in exercising violence. It ends legal discrimination against non-virgin and unmarried women.It criminalizes sexual harassment in the workplace and treats sexual assault by members of the security forces as aggravated offences. Provisions on the sexual abuse of children have been amended to remove the possibility of under-age consent.
In addition, family courts were established in 2003 that are specialized in cases related to family disputes.Judges for this court are selected among judiciary members who complete a master’s degree in family law.
The law on the Protection of the Familywent into effect in 2007. This law protects victims of domestic violence through restraining orders of up to 6 months. If the perpetrator does not obey the law, he is punished with an appropriate prison sentence. If the perpetrator is the sole breadwinner of the family, the state provides compensation for the victim. In addition, the police and judicial forces can now act upon notice from neighbors, relatives or any other person who witnesses an act of violence.
Another important piece of legislation is the Labor Lawthat went into effect in 2003. Based on this law,employers cannot practice discrimination on any ground, including gender, towards the employee.Employers cannot offer less pay based on gender and they cannot discriminate when creating, implementing or ending an employment contract based on gender or pregnancy. If the employer does not take necessary measures when an employee reports sexual harassment by the employer, another employee or a third party, the employee has the right to end their contract immediately. Other legal amendments include those that deal with ensuring gender equality in hiring, improving the working conditions of pregnant and breast-feeding women and regulating conditions around women who work night-time shifts.
In the Turkish Parliament, the Committee on Equal opportunities for Women and Men was established in 2009 to improve gender equality and provide opinions to the Turkish Parliament on legal tasks dealing with gender equality.Most recently, the commission conducted a number of investigations, prepared reports on issues such as violence against women, early marriages or sexual harassment of minors at school.
In 2006, a Prime Ministerial Circular titled“Measures to Combat Violence Against Women” was issuedthat emphasizes the commitment of the Turkish government tocombat violence against women and lays out an action plan that focuses on introducing legal amendments, raising societal awareness, strengthening women’s socio-economic status, offering protective services such as recovery and rehabilitation and promoting inter-sectorial cooperation.These inter-sectorial cooperation efforts include steps to end economic inequalities between men and women – under the supervision of the Ministry of Work and Social Protection, implementing city planning measures such as better-lit streets and parks, easily accessible emergency phone lines – under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Works and local governments. It also involves producing short films and conducting national, regional and local media campaigns to raise awareness on violence against women – under the supervision of the General Directorate of Women’s Status and preparing religious sermons to be broadcasted in mosques that discourage violence against women – under the supervision of the Directorate of Religious Affairs.
Following the circular, training programs were conducted around Turkey on violence against women for police (40.400), health workers (62.000), judges and prosecutors of family courts (326), and imams (12,000). A new Registration Form for Domestic Violence was created and adopted, which has standardized all questions by police and allows for information sharing across the country between police officials.
Training programs for public servants (1704) including high-level officials, municipal staff, members of syndicates, and civil society organizations were also conducted around Turkey.Others were held for students in Media and Communications Programs on the role of the media in ensuring gender equality and for members of the armed forces on women’s rights, honor killings and gender equality.Polls were conducted by the General Directorate of Women’s Status on family violence with the aim of collecting reliable data on the situation.
Now, I would like to move on to discussing some specific policies that have been adopted for women in the areas of education, health and employment.
I would like to note that Turkey has a female education minister, who has greatly increased the number of women working in the Ministry. The government’s9th Five-Year Development Plan, covering 2007-2013, clearly states its priority of strengthening the social status of women, increasing their participation in all fields of life, increasing their level of education to ensure they benefit from the same opportunities and increasing women’s literacy levels.
Anothergovernment Action Plan, released on January 10, 2008, putstargets in increasing primary school enrollment rates to 100%, and high school enrollment rates to 90%.
Conditional Cash Transfers for Education are given to the most needy parts of the population to ensure all children receive basic education. The amount is higher for girls (35TL/month for primary school, 45TL/month for high school) than for boys (30TL/month and 40TL/month respectively). In order to strengthen the status of women within the family and in society, the cash is transferred only to mothers. In 2009, 354 million TL was spent on cash transfers and 2.118.821 kids benefited from the program.
Another campaign, All Girls to School, targets kids between the ages of 6-14, especially girls, who for any given reason cannot go to school, have to drop-out, or have too many days of absence, and aims to remove systematic barriers against their participation. The project is run in cooperation with UNICEF. The project, which started in 2003 in Van province, had spread to all provinces of Turkey by 2008.
The “Mother-Daughter in School”campaign aims to eradicate illiteracy among women and girls. Between 2008-2011, 1.110.105 women participated in the courses and 652.162 received a literacy certificate. The target is to educate 3 million women and girls.
Occupational and Technical Skills Classes are also conducted by the Ministry of Education in cooperation with syndicates, business associations and civil society organizations to teach women occupational skills to enter the work force. The project is run in 30 provinces.
The government has also committed to opening a boarding primary school in each province by 2014, in order to ensure schooling of girls. Overseen by the Societal Gender Equality Commission within the Ministry of Education, the project “Eradicating Gender Inequality from School Textbooks” aims to investigate all school textbooks to ensure they do not contain negative stereotypes against women, include equal information and pictures of men and women and do not portray women in submissive and emotional ways.
As a result of such efforts, the net primary school enrollment rate in Turkey increased from 92.4% in 2001-2002 to 99.3% in December 2010.More importantly, the difference between girls and boys’ participation was reduced from 7.75% to 2001-2002 to 0.30% in 2010.
A similar emphasis on women can be found in the strategies and action plans of the Ministry of Health. The government’s strategic plan for health placed specific emphasis on women’s reproductive health and decreasing the rate of maternal deaths. By 2015, the government committed to reducing the rate of maternal deaths by 50% compared to 2005 – and decreasing regional disparities around Turkey.
The government also committed to providing necessary family planning services to 100% of the population by 2013.Between 2003-2007, the Turkey Reproductive Health Program was implemented to come up with service models on emergency obstetrician care, sexually transmitted diseases, family planning, training programs for youth on reproductive health and sexual health. 3 million military personnel were educated on reproductive health.
Since 2008, the “Host Mother” program accommodated 12.275 pregnant mothers under risk in health centers for one-month before birth.In the past 10 years, access to pre-birth health services increased by 27%.
Today, within two months of birth, 85% of mothers and 90% of babies access a health professional. The maternal death rate decreased from 61 per thousand in 2003 to 16 per thousand in 2010.
Another important sphere of activity is in the area of employment. The latest Development Plan for Turkey aims to increase women’s participation in the workforce to 29.6% by 2013.The government’s Action Plan commits to providing all necessary resources and training opportunities to women entrepreneurs, even after they establish their businesses.
A Prime Ministerial Circular issued in 2010 and titled “Increasing Female Employment and Securing Equality of Opportunity”aimedto promotewomen’s employment and equal opportunities, particularly in the labor market. It provided for the establishment of a national board for monitoring and coordinating matters related to women’s employment, for involvement of social partners and NGOs in the work of the board and for pursuit of gender equality and gender mainstreaming in drafting and implementing legislation and policies.
Is-KUR, a governmental employment agency, the Turkish Craftsmen and Artisans Federation and Directorate of Developing Small and Mid-Size Businesses lead various support programs for women’s employment. Women business owners can receive up to 30.000TL funds during the first 3 months of entry into business.
The Turkish Chamber of Commerce has established a Council of Women Entrepreneurs that leads policy-making on enhancing women’s potential to enter the workforce and establish their own businesses. With regulations in the Tax Law in 2007, women no longer need to pay tax on homemade items they sell in festivals and fairs. In addition, microcredit programs for women have been established around Turkey.
In terms of political participation, even though some developments have taken place in the past decade, there is still a lot to be done. 50 women entered Parliament in the 2007 national elections, making up 9.1% of all representatives. This was up from 4.4% in 2002, thanks to the work of women’s civil society organizations who led a strong campaign to increase the number of female representatives. Currently, there are only 2 female ministers. In the 2009 local elections, out of 2.948 mayors only 27 were women. There are no female governors.
However, Ak Party’s women’s branch provides a much brighter picture of women’s participation in the political sphere. It currently has over 1 million 600 thousand members, which makes it the biggest women’s political organization in the world. The branch has extended to every province and town of Turkey and conducts a wide range of activities. These include producing recommendations to parliament on legislation related to women’s issues and running workshops for women on areas of life concerning them, such as employment, childcare and violence against women. In each province, members run educational campaigns, conduct activities specifically designed for women, and respond to needs of women in difficult situations.
The women’s branch plays a very important role in empowering women who become members. Being a part of the women’s branch has allowed many women to be introduced to new social circles and learn important skills such as public speaking, negotiation and reporting. It has given many a much-desired sense of responsibility, which has raised their self-confidence and highly increased their rate of active civic participation. I believe there is a lot to be learned from this organization of committed women by women’s political organizations all around the world.
Thank you for your attention.
