There are women against the darkness!

Women do not leave the streets today as they did yesterday, they claim their rights. The women’s struggle is a movement that has spread over a long period and has continuity. This is where it gets its strength from.  Women know how to stay together, how to show solidarity, and fight together. No matter what, this is the situation for us.  

When we look at Turkey in 2024, we see that many issues are coming one after the other that require us to fight shoulder to shoulder. Today, women face endless poverty and systematic attacks on their acquired rights.

Following the campaign, which became visible in some media outlets, the “Parliamentary Investigation Commission Established to Investigate the Factors Affecting Family Unity Negatively and Divorce Incidents and to Determine the Measures to be Taken to Strengthen the Family Institution” published a report. In the report prepared by the Commission, it was stated that “the indefinite alimony in divorce mortgages the life of the man” and for this reason, the indefinite alimony should be abandoned and should be limited to a period between 5 and 10 years. When the entire report is analyzed, it is seen that women’s acquired rights are trying to be taken away from them. This report underlines that public reforms should be carried out with a “family-based perspective” by putting the strengthening of the family institution at the center.

It does not end with this, because we realized later that it had already started in this way…

Mediation means making it harder for women to get divorced

In December 2021, Abdülhamit Gül, the then Minister of Justice, stated that the failure to agree on alimony, compensation, and custody issues was the reason for the prolongation of divorce cases and that they were working on a new procedure to end this. However, Article 175 of the Civil Code regulates poverty alimony as follows: “The party who will fall into poverty due to the divorce may request alimony from the other party indefinitely in proportion to his financial capacity for his subsistence, provided that his fault is not more severe”. Alimony can be canceled if the conditions of the alimony recipient change.

In short, there is no such thing as alimony being tied once and continuing in this way until the parties die. Moreover, as claimed, alimony is not enough for women to make a living, let alone enriching them. Nevertheless, when discussions on alimony come to the agenda, misogynists’ shouts of joy and stories of victimization are frequently heard in the media. Although there is talk of a group of people who pay alimony for the rest of their lives after divorce, there is no data to prove this. Moreover, there is no provision in the law stipulating that women receive alimony. Men can also receive alimony if the conditions are met. Despite this, the discussions are centered on women. 

Recently, “mediation in family law” and “acceleration of divorces” are back on the agenda. What is meant by accelerating divorces is that women’s rights are easily taken away and men are divorced quickly. On the other hand, the introduction of mediation in family law means making it more difficult for women to get divorced. In short, this means adding new elements to the pressures faced by women who want to get divorced.

‘Put up with violence, learn to live with the perpetrator!’

Diyanet has made some statements on both divorce and alimony. Attempts to amend the law, when taken together with this, reveal a serious preference. The secularism debates that Turkey is going through and this hostile attitude towards women’s rights are directly linked to each other. This can also be seen in other steps. Following the publication of the “Circular on Official Nikah Authorisation” authorizing the Mufti to officiate at marriages and with an amendment to the “Law on Population Services”, mukhtars were also authorized to officiate at marriages! Both Mufti’s marriage and the authorization of imams to perform religious marriages without official marriage are clear signs of a system preference. Moreover, these also mean paving the way for forced marriages at an early age. 

Among these developments, the unilateral and unlawful withdrawal of the government from the Istanbul Convention has a special place. Because it means both moving away from universal rules of law and falling far behind the times by ignoring the concept of gender. This step also means falling far behind the times. We see that protection orders, which can be issued for up to 6 months under”Law No. 6284″, are issued for a maximum of 2 months. This means that women are told to “endure violence and learn to live with the perpetrator”.

The labor of women, whose most basic rights are under discussion, is also in danger. Figures show that women’s participation in working life is still very low. Although we are hesitant about the accuracy of the data, according to the latest figures, the employment rate for women is 30,4 percent. 

The biggest obstacle to participation in working life is the burden of care… The number of kindergartens and elderly care homes should be increased and one should be opened in every neighbourhood. Workplaces are obliged to open day-care centers if they have more than 150 female employees. However, the burden of care is not the only issue. Women also bear a double burden. Even though women have paid jobs outside the home, they continue to work overtime at home. In Turkey, women spend 4.3 hours on housework compared to 0.9 hours for men. When precariousness is added to all this, the picture becomes darker for us. 

In addition, the abandonment of 12 years of uninterrupted basic education is very effective in the decrease in the schooling rate of girls. Moreover, the government has long been creating the ground for women to withdraw from working life or not to participate in it at all with discourses such as “at least 3 children” and “motherhood is the best career”.

Women are killed in the places where they should be the safest!

Of course, all of this has a reflection on women’s right to life. Women face the danger of being subjected to violence wherever they come into contact in their daily lives. We see and experience this. Today, while we cannot tolerate the loss of a single woman’s life, we are talking about 8 recorded murders of women in a week. Women are killed by the people closest to them, in the places where they should be the safest!

In such a country, we have to talk about these issues more, discuss them, and keep them on the agenda. We know that there will be no change or solution to the problems in the short term, but the most important part of this struggle is for women to show that they are going after their rights and lives, and to make it known to everyone.

Happy 8 March!