Kamil Pasha

Late last month, when a jurist representing Turkey’s highest court in a briefing to the Justice Ministry suggested reducing Turkey’s legal marriage age for women to 14 and reducing the penalties for sexual attackers who agree to marry the woman they rape, the backlash from women’s organizations and gender equality groups was enormous…

[I]s Turkey taking a step backwards in women’s rights? The answer is a resounding “yes” according to Turkish women’s groups, including the Istanbul Bar Association’s Women’s Center..

[A]s almost every women’s activist in the country [asserts], …Turkey’s main problem is not that the penalties for sex offenders aren’t harsh enough — although in comparison with some other countries such as the US and the Netherlands they aren’t — but that most of the time, the crime goes completely unpunished, which in effect, encourages repeat offenses.

(click here for rest of article)

Tags: Rights, Uncategorized, Women // Add Comment »

ISTANBUL — Not so long ago, countries like Turkey — fast-growing but prone to missteps — would go hat in hand to the International Monetary Fund during just about every big financial crisis to beg for money to bail them out of their difficulties.How times have changed. These days, Mehmet Simsek, Turkey’s top economic policy maker, is doing everything he can to try to persuade the world that his government is not in need of the typical multibillion-dollar aid package from the I.M.F.

Turkey’s budget deficit is negligible, Mr. Simsek says. Its banks are well capitalized. And Turkish public and private debt are low as a percentage of gross domestic product.

“We have good policies,” Mr. Simsek said in an interview at the Swiss Hotel in Istanbul, where he had come to defend his government’s economic policies at a World Economic Forum conference. “One would hope that the markets would say that there is little role for the I.M.F.”

But is anybody listening?…

(click here for rest of New York Times article)

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After her father died in a traffic accident, a fifteen-year old girl was sold by her mother for 300 YTL (about $200) to a man in Ankara as his common law (imam nikahi) wife. She ran away to stay with her grandmother in the Black Sea town of Safranbolu, but soon thereafter was raped by at least six men in the neighborhood, most of them married. According to the brief news report, the men have been arrested and the girl sent to a social services dormitory. (Click here for article in Turkish)

I am curious what the men’s defense will be. Given some of the data and other reports I’ve posted on this blog (see the category Women), I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t some kind of collective punishment for the girl for leaving her ”husband”. Even though a religious ceremony (imam nikahi) has no legal standing, she would be considered “married” by many, especially once the arrangement was consummated. After that, if she leaves the “protection” of her “husband”, she is fair game for other men. There was no mention of a grandfather, who might have afforded her local “protection”. 

As I’ve pointed out in other cases, the woman is not perceived to be an individual with human rights, but as a social category (married or not, protected by a male family member or not) and a social problem (married, but left husband) that needs to be dealt with. Social order must be reimposed (by the death of the offending party, or by her complete destruction as a social individual through group rape).  There have been other examples of this recounted on this blog.

Changing the laws to protect women is step one. Soul searching about how women are perceived in Turkish society beyond Beyoglu and Sisli is also necessary. What can be done about that? Would women’s education help? Probably not. These sorts of attitudes are prevalent in more educated circles as well. In fact, I encountered a similar incident (without the actual violence) in an upscale middle-class Ankara neighborhood about fifteen years ago, involving an older, very respectable professional woman.

Tags: Rights, Women // 1 Comment »

The European Union’s newly released 2008 progress report about Turkey praises Turkey’s economic reforms, but brings up some severe criticisms, especially with regard to political reform and human and religious rights. Many of these problems have been discussed in this blog. The government’s response has been that it takes the report seriously, believes it is even-handed, and will resume a concerted reform program after the March local elections. 

(Click here for news analysis of the report.)

(Click here for the EU report)

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(Click here for full article) Excerpts: The image of Turkey firmly entrenched among many Arabs is twofold: western secularism and the alliance with Israel. Many Arabs misunderstand the meaning of secularism, conflating it with atheism, with the suppression of religion and the banning of its symbols.

With the head-scarf ban in universities for instance, Turkey’s strict system of laicism has contributed to the reinforcement of these misunderstandings. Many Arabs therefore see Turkey as part of the West. Some position it between East and West; under no circumstances is it seen as part of the oriental, Islamic world….

The AKP’s strategy of taking a neutral position won Turkey the role as mediator in the region’s conflicts, from the conflict in the Sudanese province of Darfur, to events in Lebanon and the atomic dispute with Iran…

The astonishing result of all these factors, along with the less active role of the Arabs in the region, is the feeling spreading throughout the Arab population, that the Arab world needs Turkey’s support again; it needs to close ranks with Turkey to protect its own interests….

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“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer”…

“To those who would tear this world down, we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security, we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright, tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope…”

“To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.”

From Barack Obama’s speech accepting his election as the president of the United States.

(Click here for article)

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(click here for full article) Excerpt:

Women in Turkey receive less education than men in the country, and both men and women stop their education earlier than their counterparts in other countries, according to statistics reported in the government’s 2009 action plan. Nearly 80 percent of women aged 25-64 in Turkey are educated only at the elementary level or lower, and only 8 percent have received higher education… Among Turkish women aged 25-64, 15 percent have received a secondary education (21 percent for males), while only 8 percent have gone to university or higher (12 percent for males).

In EU nations, the number of women attending institutions of higher learning is higher than that of males, and in other OECD countries, the figures are about even. According to 2006 statistics, the average number of years of education Turks receive is about 6 percent lower than in EU and other OECD countries, and for Turkish women it is lower than for Turkish men by about 2 percent…

[E]ducational access problems affect female students in particular, including late registration and dropouts. For the 2007-08 school year, out of 190,000 school-age children that were not enrolled in school, 157,000 were female…

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A teenage girl with her hands restrained behind her back in the Saray institute near Ankara, Turkey. Photo from Mail on Sunday.

In a dark wig and a headscarf, the Duchess of York has bluffed her way into orphanages in Turkey. The profoundly shocking scenes she found have made her - and her daughters, who went with her - determined to fight for change.

Nothing could have prepared us for this. The member of staff had been reluctant when I asked her to unlock the door of the building. Now it was clear why.

Before us was a sea of red and blue cribs - hundreds of them. Toddlers and teenagers alike were confined, many tied by hands or ankles to the cribs’ metal bars. In a far corner, one little boy peered over the edge of the 5ft-high box in which he was kept. According to staff, he was too hyperactive for a crib.

This wasn’t an orphanage. This was a warehouse for abandoned children. (click here for the rest of the article) (UPDATE: Accusation of rape in the orphanage: click here)

Tags: Culture, Education, Rights, Women, health // Add Comment »

Flower vendors, an enduring symbol of Istanbul, are on the alert, as plans of municipality officials to force them to move to kiosks are on the agenda once again.The Istanbul Greater Municipality, or IBB, first raised the idea five months ago. Flower vendors, however, complain they cannot afford the rents of the kiosks. The vendors, most of who are members of Istanbul’s Roma community, claim the rent would be a burden for them.(click here for article)

[ JW: I remember about ten years ago when the Roma women who sold flowers were replaced by kiosks in Kadikoy. Where there used to be a carpet of flowers, there is now a miniature subdivision of tiny houses, none of which as far as I can tell are owned or run by Roma — or by women. They are mini versions of regular flowers shops. And more expensive than the Roma flowers. While the drive to standardize that has gripped the AKP is in many cases a good idea, the continual destruction of the cultural fabric that makes Istanbul a unique city is lamentable. Twenty years from now, people will look back at the photos of colorful, culturally distinct Istanbul with nostalgia, but it will be too late to revive the Roma, the flower sellers, the sellers of pigeon food, the street bazaars, the authentic architecture of the old city fabric, except as fake versions for the tourists. Istanbul as Disneyland, with no authentic culture, no heart, just saleable, standardized mass-produced images.]

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Photo from NPR

Excerpt (click here for full article): Tarlabasi is a densely populated maze of narrow streets that wend between crumbling Ottoman-era houses built on a hillside. It’s located right next to the commercial and cultural heart of Istanbul and, yet, most Turks consider Tarlabasi a no-go zone…

Here, less than a mile from Istanbul’s five-star hotels, child shepherds herd flocks of sheep through the streets as Kurdish women in bright floral headscarves shop for fruit and cheap Chinese-made cosmetics alongside trembling, teenage glue-sniffers and illegal African immigrants….

Tarlabasi’s days as a lawless haven for society’s outcasts may be coming to an end. After decades of neglect, the city government has announced plans to force out squatters and renovate hundreds of old houses… One police officer said that after years of swatting at mosquitoes, the swamp will now be drained.

Asu Aksoy, an economist at Istanbul Bilgi University, says this gentrification plan is motivated by the real-estate boom that’s rapidly transforming the rest of the central Istanbul – not out of concern for Tarlabasi’s impoverished residents.

Tags: Istanbul, Kurds // 2 Comments »