Women's rights in Turkey

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The figurehead of feminism in Turkey Halide Edip Adıvar (2vR) campaigned for the end of the occupation through publications and public speeches when the Turkish Liberation War began.
Original description: “Turkish women at a demonstration, but not for women's rights, but for the independence and freedom of their fatherland. Photo of a political demonstration in 1922 directed against the occupying power (British and French). The women wear the Russian headscarf. " Istanbul 1922 (today Federal Archives Koblenz )

The article Women's Rights in Turkey deals with the political, social, economic and legal position of women in Turkey. Compared to the Ottoman Empire , the rights of the female population have been strengthened since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 through fundamental legal reforms in the sense of legal equality between men and women . Due to remaining legal loopholes or the lack of implementation of the existing laws, there is still (as of November 2007) unequal treatment based on gender.

Women's rights in the Ottoman Empire

In the Ottoman Empire , especially from the 16th century onwards , women were exposed to severe state repression. The theocratic Ottoman rule controlled daily life by issuing detailed ordinances, for example through dress codes, rules on the behavior of women outside the home and in marriage . Access to education for women was also very limited. Primary school was only open to them until they were 9 years old.

Daughters from wealthier families, who were free to be raised by private tutors, were an exception . Only boys were allowed to attend a higher spiritual school ( madrasa ). Women from the sultan's family had special rights .

In addition, all political functions were only available to men.

In the course of the Tanzimat reforms in the 19th century , the Ottoman government decided in 1839 to carry out some important changes, whereby women’s scope for action was expanded in the areas of education, inheritance law and married life.

At the beginning of the 20th century , some Ottoman parliamentarians who had been deposed by the then sultan and forced into exile and their supporters came together so that in 1908 the restoration of constitutional order could be enforced. During this second constitutional period ( Meşrutiyet ), under the influence of the Young Turks, efforts were made to give women more rights. Among other things, the minimum age at marriage for women was set at 17 years and for men at 18 years; Women could stipulate in the marriage contract that the husband was not allowed to marry a second wife; they also obtained the right to divorce.

Women's rights in the Republic of Turkey

In the republic, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923 after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the Turkish Liberation War , women's rights were drastically changed.

Kemalistic principles

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk set clear guidelines according to which the new nation-state should be built. He was primarily concerned with achieving two goals: firstly, the establishment of a strong independent state and secondly, the modernization of all areas of life. This was shown primarily by the abolition of the civil code ( Mecelle ) that had been in force until then , which was largely based on Islamic theocratic regulations ( Sharia ). This code was replaced on October 4, 1926 by the new Turkish civil code , which was based on the Swiss civil code . This renewal had far-reaching consequences for women. Almost every area of ​​daily life and the social and political framework was influenced by the abolition of the old Ottoman law and the introduction of the new laws.

For example, polygamy was banned, civil marriage was made the norm, both spouses were granted divorce rights, and female rights were aligned with male rights in inheritance law , property law and guardianship law . In accordance with the secular principle of Kemalism , a strict separation of religion and politics was enforced. In addition, the educational institutions were secularly renewed and the higher schools opened for women for the first time.

The new civil code

In addition to many legal improvements for the female population, the adoption of Swiss civil law has brought about its patriarchal basic structure. In many areas this legal system was more positive for Turkish women than the previously applicable Islamic guidelines, but in some other areas the family law of the Ottoman legal system, based on Sharia law, was superior to the new legislation in 1917. For example, in the new civil law, the minimum age at marriage for women has been reduced from 17 to 14 years. It was also stipulated that women were allowed to work, but only with the consent of their fathers or husbands. In all of the Swiss and Turkish civil law of that time, the man was defined as the head of the family. This gave him far more decision-making power than the female family members. A complete legal equality between the sexes was accordingly not achieved with the new civil law. The traces of the patriarchy were imposed in Turkish civil law until 2002. The civil law reform came into force on January 1, 2002 and included the goal of realizing equality between men and women and adapting them to European standards. According to the new Turkish civil code, in contrast to the former law, the husband is no longer the head of the family. He no longer has the right to determine the family's place of residence or to give his wife's consent to the professional activity of his wife. In the case of parental care, where both parents have the right and duty to care, the father no longer has the last word in the event of disagreements since the reform.

Symbolism and modernism

With the extension of women's rights to Gündüz, Ataturk intended to show Ekici to be modern and progressive in the first place. Another reason for Ataturk's emphasis on women’s rights, especially the right to education, was that he saw a progressive upbringing of children as essential for a successful, long-term modernization of the country . Women should be allowed to enjoy more education because, in his opinion, the attitudes and skills of the future Turkish citizens largely depended on the educational qualifications of the mothers and teachers.

“On the Place and Duty of the Turkish Woman: With our people in the past, woman won a high measure of importance. As history will testify readily, our great ancestors and their mothers exhibited really great virtues. Of these virtues which we can enumerate here in many respects, the greatest and the most important was the fact of their rearing worthy children. Indeed the Turkish people's achievement of great power and brilliant deeds all over the world, not only in Asia but in Europe too. This was owing to the fact that such a worthy ancestors as theirs reared virtuous children all the time and implanted in their minds unfailingly principles of valor and virtue. Here I want to state that our women, apart from their share of the general duties, are obliged to fulfill a task most important, most beneficent most virtuous to their kind: the task of being a good mother ... For mothers of today it is a must to be equipped with all the good qualities needed in order to bring up knowledgeable children so as to make them active participants in today's life. That is why our women have to be well informed, experienced, and learned, even more than our men. They have to be so if they really want to be the mothers of the country. " (Ataturk quote n.)

Ataturk's focus was on the one hand on the education of nationalist, progressive mothers and educators for the purpose of the long-term modernization of the state. In addition, the image of a modern, secular and liberal republic was to be strengthened by expanding and emphasizing certain women's rights.

Political participation of women

Cartoon 1930: A Quebec woman learns that Turkish women are allowed to vote
The first 18 women to be elected to the Turkish Grand National Assembly in February 1935

The introduction of active and passive women's suffrage in 1930 and 1934 is considered an important step towards real gender equality .

However, the number of female MPs actually elected to the Turkish parliament from 1935 onwards is still rather small. For a long time, the highest level of representation in the Turkish Grand National Assembly was achieved at the very beginning, in 1935 with 18 seats, which corresponds to 4.6%. After Finland (6%), Turkey was second in the world. This rate is currently 17.5%.

Election Years Number of women MPs Women in percent
1935 18th 395 4.6%
1943 16 435 3.7%
1950 3 487 0.6%
1965 8th 450 1.8%
1973 6th 450 1.3%
1983 12 400 3.0%
1991 8th 450 1.8%
1999 22nd 550 4.0%
2002 24 550 4.4%
2007 49 550 8.9%
2011 79 550 14.3%
June 2015 97 550 17.6%
Nov 2015 82 550 14.9%
2018 105 600 17.5%

(Source: Gündüz 2002: 89) (as of 2007)

The table shows the relatively low representation of women in the parliamentary decision-making body. The social scientist Zühal Yeşilyurt Gündüz names in her work Democratization is female. The Turkish women's movement and its contribution to the democratization of Turkey have the following reasons for the low political presence of women in the Grand National Assembly:

“In their opinion, the clientelist structure of politics in Turkey tends to form men's alliances that control the flow of information and make it difficult for women to gain access to high political offices. In addition, the consequences of the long-term exclusion of women at all levels of official politics, based on the justification that female nature is not suitable for high political work, are still strongly felt, which on the one hand affects the voting behavior of Turks but also have an impact on the will to political participation of women themselves. These often work (also because of the exclusion they have experienced) prefer to work at the level of non-governmental, smaller political organizations. "

The political scientist Şirvan Ekici also points out the problem of the double burden: although the Turkish woman is formally free to access political office, she is still mainly assigned to the private, family sphere and for raising children and running the household regarded as solely responsible. In addition, their freedom of action across all income groups and age groups often still depends on the consent of the male relatives, especially that of the husband and father.

Left-oriented student associations

In the 1960s and 1970s, a strong student movement formed in Turkey , whose main focus was on the differences and injustices between the social classes. The very massive discrimination against women in public and private life at the time was also discussed. The focus of the political controversy, however, was on the gap between the classes in terms of educational, work and income opportunities and not on the different rights and opportunities of the sexes. But the participation in primarily Marxist- oriented student circles was also of great benefit for strengthening the women's movement : the young - mostly urban women - were able to participate relatively equally in political discussions and actions and were given the opportunity to strengthen their self-confidence and take a political position Respectively. The Turkish Marxists nevertheless saw the far-reaching oppression of women to be based on the socio-economic backwardness of the country and the unjust distribution of wealth. Therefore, their primary goal was to reduce the economic disparities in Turkey, according to which they believed women's problems would resolve themselves in time.

Depersonalization and de-sexualization

A strikingly similar attitude within many left, socially critical organizations and on the part of the established liberal-conservative MPs was the male rejection or denial of the sexuality of female members. The female comrades-in-arms could only exert political influence if they covered up their own sexual identity and assumed the role of mother or sister (bacı), whose outwardly emphasized asexuality was supposed to take away men’s insecurity in connection with their own sexual desires and fantasies.

Individual sexuality as a social good

Until March 1999, the courts were able to give prison sentences to women who were found to have committed adultery , and girls and young women could be tested for virginity in state schools and orphanages .

Crimes in the Name of "Honor"

A problem with an in-depth investigation of violent crimes against women is the lack of accurate statistical information on the extent and regional concentration. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that many acts of violence that fall into this category are covered up and are disguised as suicides by perpetrators or even family members of the victim and are therefore difficult to record. In addition, there is still a lack of will on the part of state institutions ( executive and judiciary ) to adequately investigate and counteract crime against women.

“Attempts to determine the number of“ honor crimes ”in Turkey do not reflect the true extent. For example, the annual report of the Turkish Human Rights Association estimates that of 77 women who died in 2003 at the hands of family members, 40 were victims of so-called “honor crimes”. However, many deaths are not even known, murders are portrayed as suicides and covered up by families; and women are being forced or induced to kill themselves. Given the frequent lack of a thorough investigation into the violent death of women by the authorities, any attempt to fully capture such crimes is doomed to failure. "
“ Honor killings affect all classes and all age groups. In most cases, the perpetrator is the victim's brother. Often the accused [receive] lighter sentences if their victims were single and pregnant. "
According to an investigation by the European Union, over 1,800 women in Turkey have been victims of so-called “honor” murders since 2001.

A major problem in this context is the often inadequate state prosecution of such crimes. To set prosecutor and police often the investigation if the suspect is contrary to the allegations. In many cases, women who have been victims of acts of violence and who want to report them are encouraged to return home and “make peace”.

This and the often internalized notion that women have no right to oppose the will of their husbands mean that many women do not even seek help from the police and the judiciary. “In a study (by the organization ' Women for Women's Human Rights '; carried out in Turkey in 2000), 57 percent of women said they had experienced physical violence, but only 1.2 percent had called the police, and 0, 2 percent had filed a complaint. "

Outer liberality and inner traditionalism

The state grants the courts a wide margin of discretion, which enables the judges to determine the sentence autonomously according to their ideas . As a result, the positive legislative amendments carried out in the last decade are often devalued by judicial practice. Similar discrepancies between written law and law enforced in individual cases can also be found in several other Islamic countries. Allowing such leeway allows some politicians, despite the liberal garb of a constitutional, secular republic, to maintain religious, patriarchal ideas and practices within.

Other forms of oppression

It is important to emphasize that acts of violence in Turkey are also committed for other reasons. However, women also have a high inhibition threshold to turn to police institutions in connection with these experiences of violence.

“In Turkey, violence against women ranges from the failure to meet minimum economic needs, verbal and psychological violence to beatings, sexual violence and murder. Forced marriage , including of minors, berdel (the reciprocal marriage of women to save dowry and other wedding costs) and beşik kertmesi (a form of arranged wedding in which the family of the future groom, the family of the newborn girl as a symbol of the family Agreement provides a cradle and thus a marriage in the distant future is considered binding). "

With regard to these facts, too, it is difficult to obtain precise information on their extent and regional concentration. Nevertheless, the severity and prevalence of the crimes committed against women can be roughly estimated from several smaller studies compiled by Amnesty International :

  • In 1994, for example, according to a study carried out by the “Office for the Status of Women”, 40 percent of the men questioned said “they found it acceptable to 'discipline' women and girls with violence”. Another study estimated that 58 percent of women had suffered domestic violence , not only from their husbands, fiancés, friends and brothers, but also from family members of their husbands.
  • In a group of middle and upper class women, 63.5 percent had experienced sexual assault.
  • According to another study of women in Ankara, 64 percent experienced violence from their husbands, 12 percent from husbands they had separated from, eight percent from partners they lived with, and two percent from the family. It found that 59 percent of women were victims of violence.
  • According to a study by the Mor Çatı (Purple Roof) Foundation between 1990 and 1996, 88.2 percent of 1,259 women lived in a violent environment. 68 percent were beaten by their husbands.
  • 16 percent said their husbands raped them.
  • A study of 599 women in southeast Turkey found that 51 percent had experienced marital rape and 57 percent had experienced physical violence. "

More recently, the number of reported violent attacks against women has increased significantly.

Feminist Movement

The fight against male violence has always been a major concern of the feminist movement. But especially after the military coup of 1980 , more and more groups were formed to mobilize against state and non-state attacks. This was due to the fact that the military rule had banned all political parties and organizations at the time and the women's movement subsequently made use of this political vacuum to draw attention to social problems in the form of campaigns and demonstrations. In addition, discussion groups and women's associations were set up, which also published women's magazines. One of the first large-scale actions after the military intervention was a feminist signature campaign in 1986 (7,000 votes), the aim of which was to encourage politicians to implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ( CEDAW ) and to arrest them to demand all necessary measures to which the government had committed itself through ratification in 1985.

Another highlight of the modern Turkish women's movement was the protest march on May 17, 1987 , in which 3000 women took part. The occasion of this protest rally was the court case of a pregnant woman who filed for divorce because of her husband's acts of violence. The responsible judge refused to dissolve the marital union and gave as a reason, among other things: "The woman's back should not be left without a stick [for beatings and beatings], the stomach should not be left without a child". This judgment was only one of hundreds of similar judicial decisions, the disclosure of which the women's movement made it its task.

The declared aim of the feminist movement was the social recognition and respect of women as individuals with the same rights as men and the fight against reducing their personality to the accepted role models mother, wife or sister. For the social scientist Zühal Yeşilyurt Gündüz, what is special about the third phase of the women's movement, after the Ottoman and Kemalist currents, is the fact that her initiative came from the Turkish women themselves and was therefore more strongly influenced by their own ideas than the previous reformist movements . Instead of the Kemalist idealization and symbolization of women, respect for the female body and individual sexuality became the focus of the demands.

Through many years of vehement mobilization, taboo topics were brought into the public debate and discussed on a broader level for the first time. At the same time, the feminist movement was institutionalized in the 1990s: several women's shelters were founded, but they were always threatened with closure due to financial bottlenecks. In addition, university women's research centers and libraries with a feminist focus were opened.

Another focus of the women's movement is the struggle for full legal equality between men and women and its implementation in all private and professional areas and in all regions, some of which show considerable discrepancies . One success of increasing women's education is, for example, the high percentage of women scientists at universities, which far exceeds the percentage in the western industrialized countries.

Civil law reforms in favor of women

In the 1990s, numerous articles of civil law that contradicted the principle of equality were revised. Among other things, Article 159, which tied the woman's work permit to the consent of her husband, was repealed by the Constitutional Court in 1992 . Furthermore, since 1997 women have been able to decide for themselves whether they want to keep their own name next to the husband's name after the marriage. In 1998, an important law to protect children and women from domestic violence also came into force.

Four years later, in January 2002, the Turkish parliament passed another major reform of civil law. For the first time, the article that defined the man as head of the family was repealed. Furthermore, the legal age of marriage has been raised to 18 years for women and men. In addition, illegitimate children received the same inheritance rights as legitimate children. However, some demands from women's rights activists were not met. Above all, the abolition of the judges' great discretion was called for, as this repeatedly leads to disproportionately mild punishments for the perpetrators.

Compared to other countries, Turkey has introduced a civil law that promotes equality, which must now be implemented in all parts of the country.

Situation since 2000

Between 2002 and 2009, the number of women murdered increased dramatically (by 1400% for this period). Some scholars attribute this to the conservative politics of the ruling AKP and the elevated position of religious values ​​in the everyday life of the citizen, since according to the classical exogenesis of the Koran, violence against women may be religiously sanctioned ( Sura 4:34 ).

According to a report by the World Economic Forum on the status of equal rights for women in 134 countries, Turkey took the comparatively poor 126th place in 2010.

In 2012 , Turkey became the first country to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence . Nevertheless, in 2018 Turkey received a reprimand from the Council of Europe for continuing violence against women, for child marriages and sometimes arbitrary leniency by judges towards violent criminals. More than a quarter of all women in Turkey are married before they come of age , although the minimum age for marriage in Turkey is 18 years. The Council of Europe also complained that Turkish society had restrictive views on the role of women right up to the highest political levels. In Turkey, rape is often seen as the mistake of women who thereby "dishonor" the family,

According to the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey , femicides increased by more than 50 percent in Turkey from 2015 to 2019. There were 474 femicides in 2019.

See also

literature

  • Zehra F. Arat (Ed.): Deconstructing Images of "the Turkish Woman". Macmillan, Hampshire 1998, ISBN 0-312-17544-2 .
  • Zühal Yeşilyurt Gündüz: Democratization is female ... The Turkish women's movement and its contribution to the democratization of Turkey. Der Andere Verlag, Osnabrück 2002, ISBN 3-89959-005-8
  • Şirin Tekeli (Ed.): Women in Modern Turkish Society. 2nd Edition. Zed Books, London 1994, ISBN 1-85649-152-8 .
  • Sadi Üçüncü : The position of women in the history of Turkey. R. G. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-88323-504-0 .

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Şirvan Ekici: The position of women in Turkish society with special consideration of the political participation of women . University of Vienna 1998, diploma thesis
  2. ↑ See Chios # story .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Zühal Yeşilyurt Gündüz: Democratization is female ... The Turkish women's movement and its contribution to the democratization of Turkey. The Other Publishing House, 2002.
  4. ↑ Esma Cakir-Ceylan: Violence in the Name of Honor. A study of acts of violence in Germany and Turkey, Frankfurt am Main, 2011, p. 153 f.
  5. ^ Emel Doğramacı: Women in Turkey and New Millennium. Ataturk Research Center, Ankara, 2000, pp. 188ff
  6. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 437
  7. ^ "Women deputies constitute 14.3 pct of the Turkish parliament" World Bulletin. Retrieved September 27, 2012.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Amnesty International : Turkey: Women fight against violence in the family . 2004, ( Weblink ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 1.3 MB), accessed March 17, 2006)
  9. ↑ a b Dr. Hani Jashan at a lecture on honor killings; in Lukas Woelm Foundation, Amnesty Int., Terre des Femmes 2005: Symposium “Crimes in the Name of Honor” Berlin (documentation), 2005 (archive link ( memento of the original from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: the archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , accessed March 17, 2006) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.frauenrechte.de
  10. ^ "The file will be opened again" , Tagesspiegel , August 29, 2007
  11. ^ Symposium on Violence against Women and Medical Professions, Ankara Medical Association, 2002
  12. ↑ Ü. Sayın, N. Ziyalar, & İ. Kahya: sexual behavior in educated Turkish women (sexual behavior in educated Turkish women), Conference Proceedings, Institute of Forensic Sciences, Istanbul, September 2003
  13. ↑ C. Bütün, S. & M. Sözen Tok: analysis of violence against women resulting in death (Evaluation of violence against women Resulting in death), Conference Proceedings, Institute of Forensic Sciences, Istanbul, September 2003
  14. ↑ N. Ergin & N. Bilgel, Investigation of Violence Against Women in the Center of Bursa Province (Bursa İl Merkezinde Kadınlara Yönelik Şiddetle İlgili Durum Saptaması Araştırması), Uludağ University, student paper at the Department of Obstetrics in Bursa, Journal of Nursing, Turkish Association for Nursing, 2001 (51), 1-2, p. 10
  15. ↑ Study by the Center for Women Support and Solidarity Antalya on 190 women who had suffered violence, 1995
  16. ↑ Women and sexuality in Muslim societies, P. İlkkaracan (ed.), Women for Women's Human Rights, Istanbul, 2000
  17. ^ Spiegel Online: Violence every three minutes
  18. ↑ Murder a fact of life for women in Turkey Hürriyet Daily News, 2.20.2011 Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hurriyetdailynews.com
  19. ↑ Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Turkey Information No. 19 from December 2010: Democracy Deficits (PDF file; 124 kB)
  20. ↑ a b c Milena Hassenkamp: Istanbul Convention: Turkey wrestles with women's rights. Retrieved August 9, 2020 .
  21. ↑ a b DER SPIEGEL: Turkey: Council of Europe condemns violence against women and child marriage - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Retrieved August 9, 2020 .