Ruling AKP Blocks Parliamentary Gender Equality Committee

Following the efforts of women’s rights activists and women MPs, a Gender Equality Committee (literally a “Equality for Women and Men Committee”), which is to audit laws and their implementations and suggest laws, was to be formed.

However, when put before parliament for approval, MPs of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) forced a change of name into “Equality of Opportunity Committee.”

Aysun Sayın, general secretary of the Association for the Education and Support of Women Candidates (KA-DER) expressed her disappointment, saying that that latter name had been suggested again and again, and that it ignored the struggle of women for equality.

"Discrimination will be ignored"

She explained why they wanted the initial name: “Can we truthfully say that the gender equality which is written into and protected by laws is really implemented in real life? If the Committee is called ‘Equality of Opportunity’, then we will be hindered by legal regulations. The discrimination and rights violations that women experience will be ignored.”

Sayin added that equality of opportunities presupposed equality: “If people say ‘we are equal in law’ and the committee is called ‘equality of opportunity’, then we cannot demand women quotas or special precautions in employment.”

The committee had been approved by the Constitutional Committee until the day before yesterday (10 February). When a male AKP MP found out the name and objected, it was changed.

Pınar İlkkaracan, co-founder of the Women’s Human Rights – New Solutions Association, had previously interviewed MP Gaye Erbatur of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) for bianet.

She recalls that Erbatur had described the Gender Equality Committee as a potential turnign point for the women’s movement and added:

Changes without consultation unacceptable

“Last week all parties were in agreement. As women, we had congratulated them on such political determination. How can they suddenly, without asking us, change the name of the committee and the aim described in the first paragraph? Whose equality of opportunity are they talking about?”

İlkkaracan argued that equality of opportunity could at the most be a subheading of the Gender Equality Committee. She criticised Nimet Çubukçu, Minister of State responsible for women and the family, for her lack of interest in the matter.

Parties and women are protesting

İlkkaracan told bianet that the CHP and the Democratic Society Party (DTP) refused to vote for the Equal Opportunities Committee in protest on Tuesday (10 February).

KA-DER general secretary Sayın said that the women’s organisations had been caught by surprise by this sudden change but that they had started sending faxes of protest to the Ministry concerned with women’s issues. (EZÖ/AG)