[hr-education] Turkey: Women try to make their voices heard

Women try to make their voices heard 
Saturday, June 23, 2007 
by Sevin Turan, Turkish Daily News 

Women from all around Turkey came together yesterday to propose a roadmap 
for their future. The third coordination and planning meeting of the 
Women's Human Rights education Program (K.HEP) of the Women for Women's 
Human Rights-New Ways (K.H-YÇ) foundation and was attended by 70 women 
from 20 different cities of Turkey including Ad.yaman, Ayd.n, Çanakkale, 
Siirt and Istanbul. 

K.H-YÇ is a nongovernmental organization operating for the last 12 years 
supporting the struggle by women for equal and free living against all 
injustice. .pek .lkkaracan, director of the foundation's management board, 
explained the group's aim as creating a difference in the lives of women 
in Turkey and to make their voices heard, a right that they have long been 
deprived of. 

Working in collaboration with the Social Services and Child Protection 
Agency (SHÇEK), K.H-YÇ has reached about 5,000 women in 36 cities across 
Turkey and tried to increase their awareness of womanhood. Rather than 
creating a school class environment, the workshops of K.HEP are based on 
round table meetings in which women share their experiences with each 
other. The topics of discussions include women's constitutional, civil, 
political and sexual rights, deconstruction of gender stereotypes and new 
technologies in fertility and childcare. 

However, one of the workshop leaders, Songül Eyder from Istanbul, 
underlined the fact that women attending these meetings are not the most 
marginal cases because the priorities differ. "If they are living in 
wretched poverty, the priority of the women is to struggle with their 
poverty. Constitutionally guaranteed property rights do not make any sense 
if they do not have any property," said Eyder. 

As the parliamentary elections process got underway, group leaders asked 
the women about their expectations of the new government during the 
workshops, and collected their answers under the heading "Our Expectations 
from the New Government." The aim of the declaration, which is being 
circulated through the media, is to draw the attention of politicians to 
women's issues and to subsequently affect their election strategies. 

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. 
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=76558  







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