Democracy & Gender in Turkey

Equality is both cause and effect of democratic participation

Discrimination & Gender

Gender disparity is a result of institutional discrimination

Social change improves democratic participation

Democratic participation brings about institutional change

Institutional change enhances democratic participation

Gender & the Law beginning of the 20th century

The German civil code stated “to the husband belong the decisions in all affairs of the married life”

The French civil code required a wife’s “obedience” to her husband.

Ottoman family laws at the time were based on traditional Islamic law (Sharia).

Even Sweden didn’t get an egalitarian Marriage Law until 1915

Population, urbanisation, female literacy in Turkey, 1945-2000

Year Population (m) Urbanisation Female literacy

1945 18.8 25% 13%1960 27.8 32% 25%1980 44.7 44% 55%2000 67.8 65% 81%

Social Change in the 20th century

At the End of the 20th century

Turkey was the only European society where:

Women had unequal status under both civil and criminal law

The civil code recognised the husband as head of the household

The penal code was based on the notion of family honour, rather than individual rights

Minding the Gender Gap

World Economic Forum assesses the following:

economic participation

educational attainment

health

political empowerment

Global Gender Gap Index 2007The top

1. Sweden2. Norway3. Finland4. Iceland

5. Germany6. Philippines

7. New Zealand8. Denmark9. Ireland10. Spain

11. United Kingdom12. Netherlands

The bottom117 Burkina Faso

118 Iran119 Oman120 Egypt

121 Turkey122 Morocco

123 Benin124 Saudi Arabia

125 Nepal126 Pakistan

127 Chad128 Yemen

Turkey’s Gender GapIndicator Spain Bulgaria TurkeyFemale labour force 45% 41% 28%Legislators, senior officials, managers 30% 30% 6%

Professional and technical workers 47% 34% 30%

Enrolment – primary 99% 95% 87%Enrolment – secondary 99% 87% -Enrolment – tertiary 72% 44% 24%Women in parliament 36% 22% 4%Women in ministerial positions 50% 24% 4%

Legal Change or Institutional Change?

UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women found 29 articles of Turkey’s Penal Code discriminated against women

Reform of the Penal Code was made a condition for the start of EU membership negotiations.

Legal scholars drafted a new Penal Code that didn’t change any of the articles that discriminated against women

The association Women for Women’s Human Rights started a public campaign to have changes adopted.

Institutional Change

a real public debate on gender equality succeeded in changing the law

Government commitment to work with NGOs

High degree of transparency and public consultation

cross-party consensus between AKP and CHP

first time Parliament produced its own draft law.

The new Penal Code

35 articles concerning women and their rights to autonomy were changed

sexual crimes recognised as violations of individual women’s rights not as crimes against family honour

criminalises rape in marriage and sexual harassment in the workplace

no sentence reductions for honour killings or rapists promising to marry their victims

GETTING TO SPAIN?

In Spain, until 1975 a woman:

needed her husband’s permission to work, buy property or even travel

could aspire to marriage and motherhood but little more

was legally obliged to obey her husband

TURKEY’S FUTURE?

In Spain today ...

40 percent of judges and doctors

65 percent of schoolteachers

50 percent of senior government ministers

... are women

GENDER EQUALITY

the lesson is simple:

Democratic progress depends on inclusion and participation

• Sources:• European Stability Initiative, SEX AND POWER IN TURKEY:

Feminism, Islam and the Maturing of Turkish Democracy, Berlin- Istanbul June 2007

• http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/esi_document_id_90.pdf• World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report 2007 • http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2007.pdf• Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit Europe and

Central Asia Region, Bridging the Gender Gap in Turkey: A Milestone Towards Faster Socio-economic Development and Poverty Reduction, September 16, 2003

• http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTECAREGTOPGENDER/Resources/TurkeyCGA.pdf