UNFPA: Supporting Gender Equality in Turkey

What's the situation?

Turkey has a unique historical experience of addressing gender inequality.

With the end of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Republic in 1923, Turkey entered a period of dramatic and rapid political change , where religion and the state were clearly separated. Today in a society where 99 per cent of the population is Muslim, laws are still formulated according to strictly secular principles.

At the heart of this transformation were measures to redress the huge inequalities between the rights of men and women which had characterised centuries of Ottoman rule.

Under its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish Republic actively encouraged women to enter public life, made radical changes to the legal system and strove to transform social traditions and values which discriminated against women. Turkish girls and women were able to go to schools, get jobs outside the home, vote and enter political life.

But while this revolution in gender equality was unparalleled at the time, contentment with this model, together with the changing social, political and economic conditions in Turkey has to a large extent prevented further expansion of women ' s human rights to levels and areas reached elsewhere.

Joining the European Union is a high priority on Turkey's political agenda and in recent years parliament has passed a number of constitutional amendments and has introduced other legal changes such as a law for Family Protection. It has introduced a new Civil Code and amended the Penal Code with the aim of improving human rights and bringing Turkey in line with EU norms.

But implementing these changes requires extra effort. A major challenge when dealing with many development issue in Turkey are the country's pronounced regional disparities. Inequality and poverty are more prevalent in the east than the west; in rural rather than urban settings and among the low-educated rather than high-educated.

So while Turkish law guarantees formal equality between men and women, there is still a gap between the law and practice and there are a number of areas for concern :

Fewer girls than boys in education

Despite the considerable gains made since the establishment of the Republic, and the fact that education is a compulsory legal right and opportunity for all Turkish citizens, educational attainment levels for women and girls lag behind that of the male population, particularly in rural areas in poorer regions of the country.

The overall enrolment rate for girls in schools at the primary and secondary levels is lower than for boys. In some provinces more than 50 percent of girls between ages of 6 and 14 do not attend school. In rural areas over 60 percent of all girls between the ages 11 and 14 are not enrolled at a school. According to the last national census (conducted in 2000), the illiteracy rate for women aged 15 years and above is 21.5 per cent, while for men in the same age group it is only 5.58 per cent.

A strong patriarchal culture remains in many communities and m any families may give educational preference to their sons rather than daughters. Early marriage and/or a lack of money can also act as barriers to girls' education. In rural areas it may simply be difficult for girls to get to school.

In order to address this problem the Government of Turkey in 1997 decided to increase compulsory education from five years to eight. The number of state-paid boarding schools and school transport services have been increased. The Ministry of Education organizes various programs and training courses for women and girls who were not able to go to school or had to drop out early.

Education for girls has a clear impact on the number of children they have. Women who had no or very limited education have an average of four children. Among women with middle or high school education have this falls to an average of 1.6

Low awareness and use of services for reproductive health

In Turkey women in the age range of 15-49 make up 25 % of the population and the health of this portion of the population has considerable consequences for the social and economic well-being of not just their immediate families, but of Turkish society as a whole.

Despite some progress made in mother and child healthcare and reproductive health , there remain serious gaps in the availability of health care services, particularly between urban and rural areas and among the regions.

Prevention and early diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is an important challenge for Turkey. Surveys on young people and sexually active adults show there is a dangerous lack of knowledge about STIs other than HIV/AIDS .

Access to reproductive health (RH) information and services are still limited, particularly for men, disabled people and the young people

There is also a clear need to improve obstetric services . This can be seen from Turkey's perinatal mortality rate (this is the sum of the number of the stillbirths and early neonatal deaths divided by the number of pregnancies of seven or more months ' duration) According to the Turkish Demographic and Health Survey (2003), the perinatal mortality rate in Turkey is 24 per thousand (in rural areas 29 per thousand), which is high when compared to developed countries

For services to be used effectively, Turkish women and men need better education about reproductive health. What information is included in the school curriculum is not enough. Research shows that young people in Turkey mostly get information about sexual and reproductive health from their friends, magazines and newspapers. These put young people at a greater risk of sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies.

Compared with many neighbouring countries, overall contraceptive prevalence in Turkey using both traditional and modern methods) is high, at 71 percent, according to the 2003 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey. However, only 42.5 percent use modern contraceptives. There is still a heavy reliance on traditional methods and this leads to many unplanned pregnancies.

Although there has been a drop in the percentage of pregnancies which are ended through induced abortion, the level is still high . The use of post abortion contraception and post-partum contraception is quite limited.

Male participation in reproductive health programmes needs to be increased.

One of the important changes brought by the new Civil Code (effective from January 2002) , is the stipulation of a new minimum age for marriage 17 years for boys and girls. This measure is aimed at preventing marriages at a very young age.

Lower pay, lower status in the workplace

Over recent decades, Turkish governments have shown their understanding for the importance of gender equality. The key Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW ) was ratified by Turkey as early as 1985, and a General Directorate on the Status and Problems of women was established in 1990

But changing legislation doesn't necessarily lead to changed behaviour. Turkish women need extra empowerment to be able to participate as equals in politics and to have equal access to economic resources and opportunities.

Outside the cities, a considerable number of Turkish women with low levels of education work in agriculture and many of them are unpaid family workers. Women who work in industry or in the service sector services are usually employed in the least prestigious part of the workplace, typically in labour intensive sectors such as textile, garment and food manufacture or tobacco processing. These jobs have low wages, low status and a lack of social security.

Attitudes to work betray a considerable gender imbalance. There is widespread acceptance in Turkish society of jobs being categorised as " women ' s work " and " men ' s work " . Many women would not apply for a job considered to be men's work even if there might be a position available . These attitudes both among employers and would-be employees, perpetuates low-status and low-paid for women.

In Turkey, many working women neither understand nor use social security services. Such services are provided by three different institutions: the Public Servants Retirement Fund, the Social Insurance Institution and Bağ-Kur (Social Insurance for the self-employed). But majority of working women do not enjoy the benefits offered by these institutions. The voluntary pension scheme offered to housewives by Bag-Kur is rarely used because of a lack of awareness and because most housewives do not have the income required for premium payments and remain financially dependent on their husbands.

Working women in Turkey often find it particularly hard to cope with their jobs and family responsibilities. There is widespread expectation in Turkey that women even if they work outside the home should also take care of almost all domestic duties including childcare and be responsible for the well being of other family member s , including the elderly. There is little practical state help for this in Turkey and there are not enough childcare services provided by public or private institutions are insufficient.

A lack of women in politics

Women are disadvantaged in participating in decision-making processes and power sharing.

The current parliament, elected in 2003, has the second highest percentage of women MPs in the history of politics in Turkey but this is still only 4.3 per cent. The gender imbalance is even worse at a local level, with only one female mayor elected in local elections of March 28 2004. Currently there are no women serving as governors

A number of factors contribute to the absence of women in politics. Traditional values and ideas of gender norms discourage women from taking an interest in politics or from having the passion to take part in a political race.

Even where a women decides to differ from these values, she must persuade others to do so too before she can enter politics. In pre-election system, a woman candidate has to get the consent of party delegates. But since the behaviour patterns deemed appropriate for men and women in society are very different, women politicians have a much harder struggle to be accepted.

Women in Turkey very often lack the education or economic power which is considered necessary for participation in politics.

Gender-based violence and "honour killing"

Violence against women in Turkey takes several different forms and is a serious problem.

Accurate data is scarce, but what surveys have been made suggest that violence against women is both frequent and widely accepted.

In east and south east Anatolia 58 % of women reported a physical assault in 1998. According to research conducted in Ankara in 1995, almost all women living in slum areas had experienced domestic violence. Another study conducted among women of middle and high income showed that 23 percent of these women had been assaulted or beaten by their husbands.

However this kind of violence often passes unquestioned by families, communities or by the mass media.

Further research in 2003 by Hacettepe University revealed that 39 percent of Turkish women and 63 percent of young women aged 15 to 19 believe that wife beating is justified in some cases. It is clear that there is an urgent need in Turkey for raising awareness on women ' s rights and violence against women.

Of particular concern are so-called "Honour Killings" where a where women and young girls are murdered by their relatives for allegedly bringing shame on the family.

While the exact number of such cases is not known, human rights groups estimate that hundreds of Turkish women are murdered in honour killings each year. Behaviour regarded as " dishonourable " can include being a rape victim or resisting an arranged marriage. In one recent case a girl was killed for wanting to wear trousers to attend a family wedding.

One major difficulty in dealing with the problem of gender-based violence in Turkey is a lack of reliable data. Country-wide research is needed to investigate the extent and of these kinds of violence against women. Because little is known about the true extent of the problem, Turkey has not yet been able to formulate effective policies that aim to eradicate gender based violence. Those support mechanisms which do exist such as counselling centres and shelters are not enough.

UNFPA specifically targeted gender based violence in Turkey with a high-publicity campaign, "Stop Violence Against Women !", launched in 2004

The Turkish government has already taken a tougher stand on violence against women. The Law on Family Protection adopted in 1998 introduced some protection for victims of domestic violence. The revised Civil Code, passed in 2001, brought Turkish family law in line with EU norms, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Over the past 10 years the Turkish National Assembly and the Supreme Court have abolished or annulled discriminatory paragraphs in a range of laws. The new Penal Code bill passed by Parliament on 26 September 2004 contains much improved protection of women ' s human rights. This new law also takes specific measures to eradicate honour killings, it prohibits marital rape and makes no discrimination between married and unmarried women. A major change lies in the classification of sexual crimes as " Crimes Against Persons " , rather than " Crimes Against Society " .

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