actual

  • A matter of state: abortion 

    Abortion is a worldwide matter that mostly talked about by men and used as a means of pressure on women. How has abortion been discussed in Turkey? And how has it become a state policy?

  • She stabbed 28 times when she wants a divorce 

    “He always restored to violence in order to cover his guilt. First, he beat me and then raped me,” says Elif who was forced into marriage by her father when she was 15 years old. She was subjected to sexual, physical, and psychological violence and she was stabbed 28 times by her ex-husband when she wanted a divorce. Elif states that her ex-husband was released from prison within the scope of the amendments of the Law on the Execution of Sentences in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Elif says she has lived in fear.

  • Rural women feel independent by standing on their own legs 

    As women are organized, they become active in their own lives. When women earn income and control over their earnings and this strengthens their sense of independence.

  • Struggle with the portrayal of women on television 

    “It would be naïve to say or think what is presented to us by television like a pill was coincidental. When we watch the television consciously, we are faced with the fact that television is a device that reinforces the roles of women in social life.”

  • Refugee women face sexual abuse, suffering and death 

    The life of “Refugees” or “displaced people” is not easy as people think… First, they were called “visitors” in Turkey and then as “People under Temporary Protection Status”. The social gender roles, religious and cultural factors we grew up in and their male advocators sometimes can be an obstacle to the lives built by women, particularly by refugee women. A report entitled, “Syrian Women Empowerment Project” prepared by the Women's Solidarity Foundation shows this fact again. In the report, there are stories of women who faced violence both in Syria and Turkey.

  • “We started to discuss our own problems over refugees” 

    Turkey is one of the most affected countries by the Syrian civil war; it has hosted mass migration since the war began. Ayselin Yıldız, who has been working on the migration theme for 14 years at Yaşar University, explains the adaptation process with refugees in our country and says, “If we use the funds and grants only for Syrian refugees, if you don’t include our own citizens in this economic crisis atmosphere, the adaptation process is doomed to remain on paper only.”

  • “I have 10 fingers to see!” 

    Fatma Işık Kaya has a disease known as Night blindness “nyctalopia” resulting in complete loss of her vision over time. In high school, her illness progressed and she isolated herself from world for a while. With the support of her father, she began to take an interest in art and held on to life. Visually impaired Fatma works on music and paints and participates in exhibitions. Saying that she will keep painting until the end of her life, Fatma says, “I lost my two eyes, but I have realized that I have ten eyes thanks to my fingers.”

  • Women's endless burden 

    Ongoing quarantine and social isolation have increased violence against women and increased the women’s burden, an endless cycle of cooking, cleaning and care at home. In this period, women have been taken away from working life and they have remained unprotected more against gender-based discrimination, violence and femicide. It seems that women have been also paying the social and economic costs of the pandemic.

  • Free feminine hygiene products should be provided 

    During the pandemic, women have difficulty to buy hygiene products. The women have to remove feminine hygiene products from their shopping lists in order to pay the house rent and to buy essential nutrients. The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit has announced that women have used traditional materials instead of feminine hygiene products and she has proposed a bill of law by demanding that all feminine hygiene products should be free.

  • 9 women killed in 7 days of 2021! 

    The number of women being victims of femicide is increasing every day in Turkey. We see news about violence against women every day. Women have been killed by men since the first day of 2021 in Turkey.

  • “I couldn’t take the risk of being put in jail with my baby” 

    Poet Narin Yükler was sentenced to 10 years and 4 months in prison for political reasons, and she had to choose a life in exile. When the Supreme Court approved her prison sentence, her daughter was only forty- day-old. “I couldn’t take the risk of being put in jail with my daughter and I had to leave Turkey. The court that sentenced me to prison was closed by the state after I left. Judges, who gave me the prison sentences, are currently in prison and charged with being members of the “FETÖ” organization. The police officers and police chief who detained me are wanted within the scope of the operation carried out against members of the “FETÖ,” says Narin Yükler