TURKEY
[Editor's note: this report is based on Turkey's second periodic
report to CEDAW. Turkey submitted a third report late in 1996
which was not available at the time the IWRAW to CEDAW reports
were produced.] Turkey was 'invented' as a modern, secular
state after the First World War. Atatürk, who led the country
to independence and became the first leader of the new Republic,
inaugurated nothing less than a cultural revolution in which
the influence of Islam and the country's Ottoman past were to
be exorcised, or at the very least, banished to the periphery
of Turkish life.1 Not surprisingly,
there has been a gradual return to Islamic ways and a reawakening
of ethnic and religious identity among minorities. In the 1950s
the law that banned Arabic calls to prayer in mosques was revoked,
in 1965 the government reintroduced vocational education for
the clergy, and by the mid-1980s at least ten per cent of secondary
students were attending religious schools.2
Successive governments after Atatürk discovered that rural
voters never wholeheartedly accepted secular reforms, and that
"his nationalism could not fill the spiritual gap once plugged
by Islam."3
The course of women's rights in Turkey mirrors precisely Atatürk's
radical social and political transformation, as well as the
return to more traditional ways. Urban, educated Turkish women
in the 1920s and 1930s probably enjoyed greater state support
and encouragement to enter public office and the professions
than women in Western Europe and the United States. Turkish
women were first admitted to academic positions in 1932-33,
and by 1946-47 forty-four percent of all faculty in the Faculty
of Natural Sciences and twenty-two percent of the Humanities
faculties were women.4
The early Republican reforms, including the elimination of
the shari'a, cleared the way for comprehensive changes in women's
status. However, while Turkish women were in the forefront at
the beginning of the Republican era, the general assessment
is in recent years that these reforms have stalled - and, since
the recent advent of an Islamic government, a negative trend
has set in.
Tansu Ciller and The Refah Party
The Islamists demonstrated their growing popularity in the
1994 municipal elections, when Refah Party (RP) mayors were
elected in Istanbul and other cities. Former Prime Minister
Tansu Ciller earned the scorn of many women voters by entering
into a coalition with Refah after the December 1995 general
elections. As a result of the coalition, Necmettin Erbakan,
a career politician and leader of the Refah or Welfare Party,
became the first Islamist Prime Minister since the country became
a secular republic in 1923. The women who voted for Ciller,
who now has the dual role of deputy prime minister and foreign
minister, have filed two suits against her for breaking her
campaign promises.5 In the
lead-up to the general elections, Ciller often claimed to be
women's best and only guarantee against Refah coming into power.
Angry voters claim that she opened the floodgates for fundamentalism
in order to save herself and her husband from an investigation
into allegations of corruption. As one former colleague of Ciller's
at Bogazici University said, "Now, thanks to her, we can turn
on the television and watch Refah men complain about how they
can't go on holiday because there are no separate pools for
women."6 It seems that everyone
in Turkey is now arguing about women and Islam. One observer
says that 'the new coalition has forced everyone to re-examine
and defend what they believe in. It is no longer a question
of looking East or West: this is where the next big ideological
battle will be fought and won."7
This shift in power relations, slight as it is for now, is
a matter of concern far beyond the Turkish borders. A cornerstone
of Western security policy, Turkey has the largest standing
army in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,8
and is viewed by the US and its allies as a bastion against
nationalism in Russia and fundamentalism in Iran and other neighbouring
countries. As stated in the Guardian August 1996, "the scope
for conflict, were Turkey, like Iran, to 'go Islamic' would
be immense."9
For many Turkish women, however, the problem is not so much
the immensity of the conflict but rather its subtlety. As one
feminist source explained, "our problem is not that people who
believe in the Kur'an want a better life for the people of Turkey,"
but that the old patriarchy is reasserting itself in the guise
of religion and the religious right.
Business as usual?
Many secularists are not particularly concerned about the
presence of the Islamists in government. They note that Prime
Minister Erbakan is a career politician, and they feel that
the ascendancy of his party will lead to the same political
corruption as it has for other parties, with merely a change
in the links of patronage. For others, however, the RP is not
what it appears to be. Refah is an umbrella group which includes
conservatives as well as radicals, and some fear that Erbakan's
more radical backers may be far more dangerous than he is. Dr.
Nilufer Narli, an associate professor at Marmara University,
cautions that Refah has been playing a democratic game for over
a decade, "but the real question is: are Refah's members ready
for an 'historic compromise' with the system...or are they practising
taqiya - the concealment of one's true aims for the welfare
of Islam?"10 A Turkish
professor of political science says "if you read the Islamists'
newspapers, you'll see that what they're telling their voters
is: 'You haven't given us enough votes to govern alone. We have
to act like this.' Their argument is, 'Give us more power and
then see what we can do.' "11
Human Rights in Turkey
Human rights violations in Turkey have been denounced frequently,
particularly since the Kurdish insurgency began. In October
1996 Amnesty International singled out Turkey for special attention
in a world-wide campaign against human rights abuses. Amnesty's
secretary-general, Pierre Sane, told a news conference in Istanbul
that Turkey had singled itself out "by signing international
human rights standards [sic] and proclaiming abroad that human
rights are a priority, and then covering up torture, disappearances
and political killings."12
The 1994 report of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced
and Involuntary Disappearances records more disappearances in
Turkey than in any other country in the world.13
Most of these were from the south-east, where the Turkish army
has been fighting Kurdish separatists for the past twelve years.
In the first six months of this year, according to the Human
Rights Association in Ankara (IHD), 114 people went missing.
According to the IHD, disappearance allows someone to be tortured
with impunity. There was hope in some circles that when the
Refah Party first came to power there would be an improvement
in the situation in the south-east - many Kurds who have migrated
to the cities are members of Refah - and a general improvement
in the country's human rights situation. Unfortunately, this
has not been the case. During his campaign, Erbakan spoke out
strongly for a negotiated settlement of the war in the south-east.
Upon election, he quickly changed his tune and called for nothing
less than a military settlement of the problem, and not long
afterwards called for a massive increase in the military budget.
The president of Turkey's Human Rights Foundation, Yavuz Onen,
says that Refah may well wish to solve the Kurdish problem in
a more just and humanitarian fashion, and that perhaps they
are against torture and disappearances. However, "they are the
government, but they do not enjoy the real power of the state,
because this system is based on military force."14
After the last coup in 1980, the Constitution was amended to
give a key role to the National Security Council, a joint government
-military body chaired by the President. Mr. Onen says that
that is the real government of Turkey. "In 20 years, Parliament
has never rejected a single demand made by the Council to the
government."15 A Western diplomat in Ankara has been quoted in several news
sources saying basically the same thing - "torture is something
that can be stopped here. There are people at the top of the
government who want it to stop. But they have got to get control
of the apparatus."16
At an annual three-day meeting of the Supreme Military Council
last August, attended by Erbakan, the generals announced the
army had expelled thirteen soldiers for "reactionary activities,"
which meant propagating Islamic fundamentalism in the ranks.
As Prime Minister, Erbakan will have to approve the expulsions.
Despite Refah criticism that the armed forces has an anti-religious
bias, Erbakan has been careful not to alienate the military.17 However, secularists claim that even the armed forces, which
in the past has intervened whenever the secular state was endangered,
is not as secular as it used to be, and that the growing Islamist
movement is beginning to penetrate the ranks of the military
as it has the government.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL DISCRIMINATION - Articles 1, 2 and
3
The 1926 Civil Code replaced the shari'a and gave women equal
rights to divorce and inheritance, abolished polygamy and made
civil marriage a state requirement. Women's suffrage was granted
in 1934, and the 1961 and 1982 constitutions further elaborated
civil and social liberties. However, feminists criticise the
shortcomings of the current legal framework, particularly the
discriminatory provisions remaining in the Civil and Penal Codes.
Reforms have been pending in the legislature for several years.
Of equal concern, however, is the de facto situation, in which
domestic responsibilities and employment combine to make it
very difficult for most women to be informed citizens, much
less politically active. Power and wealth (almost seventy-five
percent of household property belongs to men) is so unequal
that legal rights to inheritance or to political participation
are often of very little consequence. Sources emphasised that
any discussion of women's legal status must begin with the proviso
that women (and men) can only claim their rights if they have
enough money to afford an experienced lawyer. Otherwise, their
legal rights are easily violated.
Virginity Control Examinations
In July 1993 Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigated the prevalence
of forcible virginity control exams and the role of government
in conducting or tolerating such exams.18 Although the extent of this abuse is unknown, after extensive
interviews with doctors, lawyers and women's rights activists,
HRW concluded that "the threat of such exams follows women through
their lives." Whether at the hands of the state or private individuals,
the presumption exists that female virginity is a legitimate
interest of the family, the community and the state, and therefore
forcible examinations are deemed justifiable and override individual
rights to privacy and equality before the law.19
Although most forced virginity examinations are thought to
involve private families, state agents use this practice on
women in police custody, on political detainees, and in hospitals.
Discrimination by the police regarding sexual conduct is the
standard practice, based on deeply rooted cultural assumptions.
An unmarried couple staying in a hotel can be detained for suspected
prostitution, but it is the woman whose sexual conduct is at
issue. She can be detained and examined, and the result of the
exam can be considered evidence in an investigation of illegal
prostitution. The HRW report states:
"Evidence indicates that police detain women for suspected
illegal prostitution or immoral activity without justification
and without first conducting any kind of investigation to support
their accusations. These women are not charged with the crime
of practising prostitution illegally. Nor are they brought before
a prosecutor or judge. Instead, they are held without charge
and forced to submit to gynaecological exams."20
Turkish sources interviewed by HRW say that it is terribly
difficult to document forced virginity testing, because neither
the woman nor her family want it to become public knowledge
that virginity has been questioned. Incidents of further physical
abuse or sexual assault during these examinations are even more
difficult to document and prosecute.
More than one source has stated that a girl can be dismissed
from school if she is not a virgin. The HRW report related two
1992 suicides by secondary school girls who had been ordered
by school authorities, along with several other female students,
to submit to virginity control exams. The extent to which virginity
testing is still used, or threatened, in the schools is unknown.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN - Articles 3, 5, 6, 12, 15 and 16
Feminism appeared on the Turkish political scene, rather dramatically,
through public meetings and marches in the latter half of the
1980's. From the beginning, specifically in May 1987, when women
staged a public protest march in Istanbul, activists have placed
the physical abuse of women very high on their agenda of needed
reforms. Up to the present, the Campaign Against the Battering
of Women has brought together ideologically divergent women's
organisations. A booklet produced jointly by a number of groups
participating in the campaign, entitled "Shout and Be Heard,"
takes the position that violence against women in Turkey is
not confined to any particular group or class and identifies
the family as the major site of violence against women.21
Concern about the pervasiveness of violence against women
is shared by Islamic groups as well as secular, feminist organisations,
although their methods and objectives are very different. For
example, one writer notes that "the aggressiveness of the Turkish
male and the physical harassment that women were subjected to
in overcrowded public buses ...[prompted an] Islamic journal
[to] launch a campaign for segregating public transport.22
The head of a women's advisory group in Ankara, which has an
RP mayor, is quoted in a recent article: "We had to take a municipality
to court because they wanted to close down a women's shelter
citing lack of funds....The shelter is one of only eight in
Turkey and houses about a dozen women, mostly victims of male
violence and rape."23
One well-known feminist academic in Turkey told IWRAW that
the government's assistance to women's shelters has been on
a very small scale (this problem precedes the RP victories in
municipal elections), and that there is still no legislation
to protect battered women. Currently the process for a woman
to gain protection from a violent husband is very tedious, and
few women try to make use of it.
Honour killing
Sources have mentioned one matter of concern - the apparent
increase in honour killings - as an indication of the atmosphere
surrounding the new Refah government. It is unclear whether
more of these killings are actually occurring, or whether the
media has brought them more to the attention of the general
public. Either way, activists are troubled by the public's heightened
awareness of the killings, and more particularly, by the way
the cases are being treated in the courts.
The most sensational honour killing in recent months occurred
in Istanbul with the slaying of ten members of a family by the
estranged husband of a woman who had asked for a divorce and
who had returned to live in her mother's house. But more often,
an honour killing is carried out by a young male who kills a
female member of his own family. These young men are often chosen
by older male members of the family to carry out the killing.
Often very young men are 'appointed,' because as minors they
will be granted reduced sentences.
Women's rights groups are very concerned that the courts have
done nothing to prosecute the decision-makers in these cases,
but prosecute only the youth who has carried out instructions
and who will only remain in jail for a brief period of time.
Feminists say that this is yet another indication that the new
government will gradually allow religious (or customary) practices
and prohibitions to be observed as if they had acquired legal
or normative status.
Rape
A recent book on modern Turkey includes a commentary on sexual
violence as part of an interview with the public prosecutor
of a rural town:
"Ninety percent of the sex crimes are between men
and women; ten percent may be men and men, but I've only heard
of only one incident where a man has raped another man. The
aim of our rapist is to marry, you see. There are times when
people just want to satisfy their lust but more than sixty percent
have the aim of marrying. Say a man took a woman, and the woman
wanted it a bit, but she is too young, the man has to go to
prison. That's the law: you go to prison for under-age sex.....If
a man has kidnapped a woman, and then he marries her, and that
is approved of by the parents, then it's OK. But if they divorce
within five years then he is arrested for kidnapping. I think
it's unfair. Of course, I could not say such things in court
or I would be considered biased....There is, of course, wife
beating, but it doesn't get reported because women tend to accept
it in families of lower culture."24
Sources say that the law does not distinguish between rape within
or outside of marriage. A woman can file for divorce if she is
forced to engage in sexual relations by the use of physical force.
If she can prove that physical force was used, she can also claim
compensation. However, the courts regard marriage as an institution
which provides people with a means to fulfil their sexual needs
within the law. Accordingly, they do not accept the idea that
there can be rape in marriage, so the law is not applied in cases
of marital rape.
PROSTITUTION - Article 6
According to one women's rights organisation, prostitutes
have to be registered and work in a brothel or in specially
designated areas. Independent, unregistered sex-work is forbidden.
Unregistered women who are working as prostitutes can become
registered through the authority of a government committee,
whose work, according to this source, is kept secret.
The article of the Criminal Code which provided for a reduction
of one third in the punishment for rape if the victim was a
prostitute, was annulled by the Turkish Grand National Assembly
in 1990. However, the punishment for forcing someone to engage
in prostitution still varies according to the age of the woman
and whether or not she was a virgin before the criminal act
took place.
According to the 1994 Human Rights Watch report on forced
virginity testing, the enforcement of prostitution regulation
by the Turkish police is highly arbitrary. Registered prostitutes
undergo regular medical examinations to diagnose and treat sexually
transmitted diseases, as a matter of course. In the case of
suspected illegal prostitution, however, the police are supposed
to conduct an investigation to obtain evidence and submit a
report to the commission that monitors prostitution, and then
the commission should take action based on the report. In practise,
however, police and state health care providers detain women
without conducting a preliminary investigation, and force them
to undergo gynaecological exams. The stated purpose of these
exams is to check for sexually transmitted diseases, but medical
and other sources for the HRW report indicated that women are
examined to determine evidence of virginity or recent sexual
activity. Evidence of a ruptured hymen or recent sexual activity
is taken as evidence of prostitution.25
The police arbitrarily harass unmarried couples and unmarried
women, accusing them of prostitution. Women walking on the streets
alone or with men have been stopped and questioned by police.
Women who live alone have been denounced as prostitutes by neighbours
and then harassed by the police.26
In such cases the women are often asked to accompany the police
to have a virginity exam.
POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND PUBLIC LIFE - Article 7
In a recent interview concerning the impact of the growing
Islamist movement on women, one of Turkey's leading feminists,
Sirin Tekeli, described some of the staffing changes that have
occurred at the Women's Library in Istanbul27,
and in the municipality of Istanbul in general. She mentioned
the replacement of one key female administrator with a radical
Islamist, and the replacement of two Library staff members with
the former municipal manager of cemeteries. She also stated
that the female director of Istanbul city theatres was removed
from her post. Tekeli said the Library had not had any difficulties
since these changes were made in the period of the RP transition
to power, but she concluded the interview by saying "I have
the impression that the RP does not want women in top managerial
positions, just as it does not want women deputies in the parliament."28
Women played an important role in the success of the RP in
the municipal elections in 1994, campaigning among the village
men and women who make up the majority of new arrivals in Ankara,
as well as the other cities in Turkey. 29
Refah appeals to this constituency, both men and women, because
it supports their wish for a more traditional lifestyle. According
to the Turkish Daily News, Refah party worker Sibel Eraslan,
identified as an important campaigner in the election of the
new RP mayor of Istanbul, lost her job as the head of Istanbul's
RP women after demanding higher party posts for women.30
In general, however, when asked why no women were selected by
Refah as candidates for the last election, Refah women have
maintained that they were asked to stand and refused.31
EDUCATION - Article 10
Secularist vs. Islamist education
Islamists have built strongholds in the Ministries of Education
and Interior, where high officials are able to select supporters
for key jobs and staff positions. Islamist dominance is reflected
in policies, textbooks and teacher selection. Secularists denounced
education officials said to be collaborating with Islamists
in the April 1994 municipal elections. As a result, fifteen
top ministry officials were sacked, accused of distributing
pro shari'a materials to schools and other activities. It is
widely believed, however, that the sackings were only a gesture,
and that the education system is still deeply infiltrated by
Islamists.32
According to Sami Zubaida, many Islamist groups have focused
their efforts on the field of education and on the formation
of a new generation of Islamist functionaries, professionals
and cultural leaders. Their central focus has been the imam-hatip
schools established by the government for the training of mosque
imams and preachers. In 1992 there were almost 400 of these
schools. Islamic foundations have provided scholarships, run
residence halls, published books and in other ways provided
crucial help to the imam-hatip schools. Curriculum is not confined
to religious subjects, but includes a full range of secondary
education. Only a small number of graduates go on to work in
religious professions. Many proceed to higher education at the
main universities and find employment in the public service,
with the help of networks established by the Islamic foundations.
Their work is not clandestine but open and public. As Zubaida
says "they provide an Islamist platform of modernity that effectively
challenges the hegemony of Kemalist secularism and the Western
orientation of Turkish educational and political culture."33
The 1993 World Bank report
The following sections on Education and Employment, including
rural employment, are based on a very thorough 1993 World Bank
report on women in development in Turkey.
The educational gender gap
While there has been a significant reduction in the enrolment
and literacy gender gap in Turkey in the past two decades, the
proportion of female enrolments continues to decline as the
level of education and training increases. Female enrolments
represent only about a third of enrolments in middle schooling,
secondary schooling and higher education.
Because of high grade repetition and large numbers of children
who start school late, government gross enrolment figures exaggerate
actual school attendance. According to the WB, there remains
"very important unfinished business in providing basic education
to all children in Turkey. This is particularly true for girls,
since....forty-one percent of girls of primary and middle-school
age currently do not attend school."34
In every grade beyond primary school, girls perform better
than boys in terms of promotion rates, yet the transition rate
from primary schooling to middle schooling is much lower for
girls than for boys. The principal challenge for reducing the
male/female enrolment gap in primary and secondary schooling
is to raise the proportion of seven year old girls who start
primary school, and particularly, to raise the proportion of
girls completing primary school who progress to middle schooling.35 In every region in Turkey, the greatest
difference in enrolments between males and females was at the
middle school level.36
Vocational education
Although considerable progress has been realised in narrowing
the educational gender gap, the female labour force remains
at a disadvantage. Data on the source of training of the skilled
labour force underscores the importance of schooling in relation
to employment: forty-five percent of skilled women received
their training at school compared to eighteen percent of men.
Nearly sixty percent of men received their training on the job,
compared to about thirty-five percent of women.
In the Turkish national education system, secondary school
students make their own choices whether to attend general schools
or vocational/technical schools. About one quarter of vocational
and technical secondary schools, mainly commercial and tourism
schools, are gender neutral. About a third are designated as
girls' schools, offering training primarily in occupations which
traditionally have attracted women, but also more recently programmes
for the industrial and service sectors, such as travel and tourism
service, textile-design, electronics, office management, secretarial
training and computers, etc. Boys can attend these schools,
but few do. Analogously, boys' vocational schools offer training
in typically male-dominated professions. About six percent of
students in these schools are girls. Within the non-formal education
system, gender segregation is also widespread, with only boys
enrolled in Apprenticeship Training Centres and girls enrolled
in Girls Applied Craft Schools.37
Parents in some regions in Turkey are willing to send their
adolescent daughters to separate girls' schools, but not to
co-educational schools. The government's policy of co-education
for these groups may be self-defeating, if its goal is increased
school enrolment for girls. The fact that all general secondary
schools are co-ed constrains the career options of girls whose
parents are opposed to co-education, since these schools are
the normal route to most higher-level jobs. These parents have
the option of sending their daughters to girl's vocational schools,
withdrawing them from school altogether, or sending them to
a religious school (Imam Hatip), an increasingly popular option.
Several of the centralised co-educational boarding schools
which the Ministry of Education has built for children in remote
villages have attracted only boys, and have consequently become
de facto boys' schools.38
At the primary level, co-education is not really a problem for
most families.
Of particular concern is the access to education for girls
at the level of basic education. The WB report claims that the
majority of girls not attending primary or middle school are
not attending because no school is available.
EMPLOYMENT - Article 11
The industrial sector
Since the 1950s, about ninety-seven percent of women in the
industrial sector have been employed in manufacturing, and within
this sector, an extremely high concentration of women work in
textiles. A distant second is food, followed by machinery and
equipment. These concentrations are long-standing, reflecting
to a large degree the employment of women in activities that
are an extension of their traditional household duties.39
While employment growth was not rapid, manufacturing has created
significant job opportunities for women since 1970. The share
of women who are classified as 'employers' is very small, however,
and has remained so, whereas the male share has grown steadily.
This reflects in part the prevailing view that it is inappropriate
for a woman to run a workplace by herself, given the competitive
nature of the manufacturing industry and the conditions of the
workplace.
As in most other developing or middle income countries, the
female labour force in the industrial sector is young, mainly
between fifteen and twenty-four years old. If the twelve to
fourteen year old group is included, women under twenty-five
comprise half the female manufacturing labour force. While less
than ten percent of the female labour force is employed in the
industrial sector, there is a high degree of job segregation
- eighty percent of women work in textiles and food industries,
and of these, eighty percent are in the lower ranks of production,
and on average they earn up to thirty percent less than men.
40
The informal sector
Sub-contracting by large enterprises is most prevalent in
the textile and carpet-weaving industries, where informal workshops
permit larger firms the greatest cost reductions, and allow
them to circumvent regulations and to recruit women who may
have difficulty working outside of their community. Many of
these are family workshops, where a woman may not be paid at
all, since her work is part of a family effort.
Homebased production
In Turkey, homebased production refers to the system of women
producers who are paid by agents or middlemen on a piece-rate
basis. This system covers carpet and rug weaving, handloom weaving,
lace making, crocheting, tailoring, souvenirs and food production.
It means minimal overhead to the agents, and flexibility for
the women workers, but the wages are very low, partly because
productivity is very low. Generally speaking, male relatives
control the women's earnings.41
The services sector
Compared to industry, the services sector has been one of
relatively rapid employment growth for women. The majority of
women are in community, social and personal services. As in
industry, there is serious under-estimation of the number of
women working in this sector.
Notwithstanding the high proportion of women professionals,
women are still segregated in the lower ranks of each profession.
For instance, in academia, women account for over thirty percent
of all faculty, but only twenty percent of full professors.
In government, women account for just over twenty five percent
of professional staff, but only a small percentage of them are
directors and chiefs in the line ministries. Similarly in the
health sector, there is a great concentration of women in the
paramedical ranks.42
For women who work in the industrial and service sectors,
the lack of appropriate training is perhaps the greatest constraint
to their advancement. While the gender gap in educational attainment
has been narrowing continuously over the past thirty years,
gender segregation in the labour force has not yet begun to
narrow.
Men receive significantly more on-the-job training than women,
and although more women in skilled positions received their
training in school, enrolments of girls in vocational training
schools is significantly lower than for boys - as low as 3 to
1. The WB attributes the low enrolment of girls in these programmes
to the fact that they are not useful, and the girls know it.
A reassessment of training policies and courses for women in
education, industry and throughout the private sector should
be a government priority.
Employment discrimination
Gender neutrality has been the legal norm in Turkey, and yet
the position of the majority of women has remained essentially
unchanged by their legal emancipation. In the 1980s it was accepted
within government that gender-neutral policies have not been
sufficient, but little seems to have been done about it.
Although discrimination is proscribed in the Constitution,
in practise there are serious difficulties in obtaining legal
redress. The World Bank study emphasises the need for a legal
mechanism to provide redress for employment discrimination,
and also for the need to provide legal assistance to applicants.
Turkey has also entered a number of reservations to the European
Social Charter, including a reservation on part of Article 8
concerning the right of employed women to protection, largely
because there is no job security for women workers dismissed
on grounds of pregnancy or confinement. - Article 50 of the
Turkish Constitution on Working Conditions and the Right to
Rest and Leisure states that "minors and women" shall enjoy
special protection regarding working conditions. Many regulations
introduced for the protection of women actually constrain them
to traditional and generally low-paying occupations. For example,
women are excluded from:
- Industries in which raw materials or partly manufactured
or finished goods are processed, cleaned, altered, ornamented
or prepared for sale;
- The construction and repair, alteration and demolition of
building and all industrial activities connected therewith;
- The transportation of passengers, goods and animals by land,
air or water.43
Job security
Under Turkish labour laws workers have no job security. Dismissal
of workers has been legislated as an absolute right of employers,
who may lay-off a worker for any reason. The worker may be entitled
to certain types of compensation, but cannot demand reinstatement
in the event of an abusive or discriminative dismissal. Employers
usually claim "immoral conduct on the part of the worker," because
the burden of proof is on the worker, and few laid off workers
can spare the expense and time of a court case, and other workers
do not want to stand witness against their employer.44
Conclusions of the World Bank Report
The gender differences in status, occupations and sectoral
distribution in Turkey are marked, and they have changed very
little over time. Since 1955, two-thirds of women workers have
remained concentrated in the unpaid family worker category,
usually in agriculture.45 The proportion of women in the professions
rose steadily from 1965 to 1990, the share of women among service
workers almost doubled, and the percentage of women among clerical
and sales workers also increased dramatically. The share of
women in managerial and administrative occupations, however,
remained at about six percent between 1970 and 1990.
RURAL WOMEN - Article 14
According to the World Bank, the agricultural sector employs
almost three quarters of the female labour force, and of the
total agricultural labour force, one half is female. However,
only about three percent of these women receive a wage, approximately
five percent are self employed, and the remainder are unpaid
family helpers. (Household Labour Force Survey, State Institute
of Statistics, 1990.) Women's agricultural participation is
limited in commercial crops, where most operations are mechanised
and dominated by males, and greatest in family consumption crops.
Women are also involved in sericulture and increasingly in apiculture.
Women working in agriculture are not covered by labour legislation.
According to the World Bank study "this reflects the continuing
pressures of the large landowners, and is widely considered
to be one of the major shortcomings of the Turkish labour laws."
46
Notwithstanding the importance of women to the agricultural
sector, women do not have ready access to agricultural resources
and support services such as extension and training, information,
credit or appropriate technology. The village extension agents
who work with the farmers directly are invariably male while
the home economists, who also work in the villages, are all
female.
Male extension agents are required to contact a particular
number of farmers, who are defined as the titled owners, so
advising women in their farm activities would be an addition
to the agent's normal work load. Even if they had the time,
few women are able to talk freely with extension agents in the
absence of a male relative. The curricula of extension programmes
and research are biased towards commercial crops, which tend
to be male-intensive activities. Village extension meetings
are also attended primarily by men.47
According to a World Bank survey in one of the main Turkish
banks and its regional branches, women receive little agricultural
credit. Similarly, technology improvements in the agricultural
sector have tended to benefit commercial crops with only limited
development of technology for female-intensive activities.
Because rural development has been identified as critical
to the social and economic well-being of the country, particularly
given the untenable rate of growth in the major cities in the
past few years, the government must provide significant development
assistance for rural women. The increasing educational attainment
of rural women over the past decade exacerbates urban migration.
Without access to technology, extension services, credit and
research, the female rural labour force will remain under-productive
and the flow of migration to the cities will continue.48
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LAW - Article 16 - Article 153/1 of the
Turkish Civil Code
Very recently the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeal reaffirmed
Article 153/1 of the Civil Code which states that a woman must
assume her husband's name upon marriage. Legal activists have
been trying for a long time to get the Constitutional Court
to annul Article 153/1 on the ground that it is unconstitutional.
There is great concern that this new ruling, a confirmation
of women's dependent status, signals a shift within the courts,
which in the past have been protective of women's rights. Until
now no court had clearly stated that there was no contradiction
between Article 153/1 and the Constitution. - Articles 440 and
441 of the Turkish Criminal Code
Another very recent change concerns the crime of adultery.
Formerly, two different Criminal Code articles covered this
matter, one regarding men and another regarding women. Article
440 states that a woman has committed adultery if she has sexual
relations with a man other than her husband. Article 441 of
the Criminal Code stated that a man commits adultery if he has
sexual relations with an unmarried woman and lives with the
woman like husband and wife in the house he shared with his
legal wife, or lives openly with the woman in another residence.
The Constitutional Court has annulled article 441. The legislature
has one year to replace the annulled article with a new one.
If a new law is not passed to replace the old one, fornication
will not be a crime for men anymore, but only for women, through
Article 440 of the Criminal Code. Although this would be the
most serious outcome, sources say that there is probably a greater
chance that a law will be passed to annul Article 440 also,
or, most likely, that a new Article 441 regarding men will be
passed.
Sources explained that if a new Article 441 is passed, in
order to be constitutional it must define adultery for men the
same way it does for women in Article 440. This means that the
definition of adultery for men will be much stricter than it
has been in the past. Activists do not feel that this state
of affairs is necessarily an improvement, although initially
it may appear to be so. If a new law is passed concerning "male
fornication," then there is equality in the law, but it will
also represent increased restrictions on consensual sex between
mature partners, which secular activists do not feel should
be a criminal concern. Fornication is a criminal offence because
it is considered a threat to the family. New legislation further
establishing the sanctity of the family would be a significant
step towards accomplishing an Islamist agenda.
Even in the brief period that the Refah or Welfare Party has
been in charge of government sources say that the issue of family
values has acquired increased importance. Many women are in
favour of stricter, equal punishment for fornication - rather
than abolishing both articles for men as well as women - thus
there is no consensus about this matter among the women's movement.
Religious and civil marriages
Religious marriage is not recognised by the state as a legal
marriage. However, many couples, particularly in rural Turkey,
have had only a religious marriage ceremony. The number of women
who are in this situation can be inferred by the government
practice of periodically announcing an 'amnesty' so that couples
will come forward and register their children.
Consent
A woman must consent to be married and can apply for an annulment
if she is forced into marriage. However, not many women have
the opportunity to get their marriage annulled. Women in the
south-eastern and eastern regions of Turkey in particular, because
of the importance placed on virginity, would rarely consider
annulment, because it would leave them with virtually no opportunity
to remarry.
Property
There are three different regimes of property: separation
of goods, union of goods and aggregation of goods. If the parties
have not concluded a prenuptial agreement determining the regime
applicable to property acquired before, during and after marriage,
they are considered to have accepted the separation of property
regime (each party owns the goods and property that are registered
in his/her name.) In practice, this regime works to the disadvantage
of women. Even if the woman has money, she tends to follow the
Turkish customs and does not object to her husband managing
the couple's money, and accepts that goods and property bought
with that money be registered in his name. Consequently, she
does not have any claim on these goods or property in the event
of separation or divorce.
Legally, a wife is entitled to whatever property she can prove
to be hers. However, if her money or gold has been used for
family expenses, it may be difficult to prove it was hers.
Divorce
According to the law, men and women have equal rights in case
of divorce. However, to prove abandonment, the complaining spouse
must establish that a formal invitation back into the home has
been offered. Women usually have no place to go but to their
parents' home, and so can easily be found by their husbands,
but men can more easily disappear, thus preventing the wife
from divorcing him by formally establishing his refusal to return
to the marriage.
Maintenance
Most men declare less than their actual income, so it is up
to the woman to prove the amount of the husband's income for
the purpose of determining maintenance. According to the law,
the court should investigate the validity of the man's income
declaration, but often do not.
Inheritance
A woman's marital status does not affect her right to inherit
from a blood relative. There is no legal differentiation between
men and women in matters of inheritance. In practice, however,
particularly in rural areas, girl children are often forced
to let their brothers own the land.
Custody and Guardianship
The courts consider the best interests of the child. In practice,
women usually get custody of children. However, a woman may
not be awarded custody if she is considered to be living a 'bad'
life. During the marriage, parental authority is shared equally,
but in the event of a dispute, the final word belongs to the
father. The permission of the husband is needed if a woman wants
to leave the country with her children.
Endnotes:
1 Tim Kelsey, Dervish: The Invention of
Modern Turkey, (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1996). An excellent reflection
on the internal contradictions of modern Turkey. back
2 Tim Kelsey back
3 Tim Kelsey back
4 Turkey: Women in Development, a World
Bank Country Study, (The World Bank, Washington, DC, 1993),
p.88. back
5 Maureen Freely, "Women: True or false?
" The Guardian Features Page, The Guardian, 23 July, 1996.
back
6 Maureen Freely back
7 Maureen Freely back
8 James M. Dorsey, "The Captain Keeps
It Secret," The Wall Street Journal Europe, 22 August, 1996.
back
9 John Hooper, "Islam on Probation,"
The Guardian, 7 August, 1996. back
10 Hooper back
11 Hooper back
12 Chris Nutall, "Turkey condemned
on rights," News in Brief, The Guardian, 2 October, 1996.
back
13 Hooper, "Islam on Probation," The
Guardian, 9 August, 1996. back
14 Hooper back
15 Hooper back
16 Ethan Bronner, "Trepidation in
Turkey: Abuse allegations abound for nation in political tumult,"
The Boston Globe, 5 August, 1996. back
17 "Turkey's Islamist-Led Government
Bows To Generals," Federal News Service - Mid-East Newswire,
9 August, 1996. back
18 A Matter of Power: State Control
of Women's Virginity in Turkey, Women's Rights Project, Human
Rights Watch, (Vol. 6, No. 7), June 1994. back
19 Human Rights Watch back
20 Human Rights Watch back
21 Nüket Sirman, "Turkish Feminism:
A Short History" back
22 Nüket Sirman back
23 Cathy Benton, "Many Contradictions:
Women and Islamists in Turkey," The Muslim World, (Vol. LXXXVI,
No. 2), April 1996. back
24 Tim Kelsey, p. 187 back
25 Human Rights Watch back
26 Human Rights Watch back
27 The Women's Library and Information
Centre was founded in 1990 on premises made available by the
previous, secular city administration. It has a collection of
several thousand books and a rare collection of women's magazines
from the Ottoman era. For several years it served as a venue
for conferences and exhibitions on women's subjects. [from an
article by John Hooper, "Women fear repression by innuendo,"
The Guardian, 8 August, 1996.] back
28 Nukte Devrim-Bouvard, "Turkish
Women and the Welfare Party: An Interview with Sirin Tekeli,"
Middle East Report, April - June 1996. back
29 Cathy Benton back
30 Cathy Benton back
31 Maureen Freely back
32 Sami Zubaida, "Turkish Islam and
National Identity," Middle East Report, April-June 1996.
back
33 Sami Zubaida back
34 WB, p. 66 back
35 WB back
36 WB, p. 70 back
37 WB, p. 72 back
38 WB, footnote 53/, p. 72 back
39 WB, p. 52 back
40 WB, p. 54 back
41 WB, p. 55 back
42 WB, p. 56 back
43 WB, p. 97 back
44 WB, p. 99 back
45 There is disagreement about this.
One Turkish economist says that there has been a general decline
in the number of unpaid family labourers, and that most are
now employed in waged or salaried work. F. Yildiz Ecevit, "The
Status and Changing Forms of Women's Labour in the Urban Economy,"
Women in Modern Turkish Society, ed. Sirin Tekeli, [Zed Books
Ltd, London and New Jersey, 1995], pps. 81 - 88. Despite this
disagreement, Ecevit confirms that between 1960 and 1985 women
gained entry to only thirteen new jobs out of one hundred.
back
46 WB, p. 97 back
47 WB back
48 WB, pps. 51-2 back
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