Prime Minister Objects To Women's Employment Quote

Prime Minister's description of women’s employment quote as harmful to women gets strong reaction from the women’s organization KA-DER as an attempt to ignore the historical discrimination against women.

Emine Özcan

We asked Aysun Sayın, the Secretary General of the Association to Support and Educate Women Candidates (KA-DER), about Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdoğan’s statement that “Practice of quota will sentence women to men.”

“We are talking about gender quota. 30 percent quota covers both women and men. It means quota for men, too. There is a historical discrimination and ignoring this is ignorance.”

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) Headquarters for the Women Branches Presidency awarded the Prime Minister and his wife, together with ten other women, at the ‘Women’s Congress at International Work.’

Erdoğan stated the following in his speech:

“There are total of 817 female city council members. 320 of them are from the AKP. Women's quote means condemning women to men; that is, women will be able to enter the Parliament after men grant it; this cannot be. One cannot learn swimming on land. One reason that the women’s employment seems low is the unregistered work.

“Just when we had the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) accepted…”

Sayın says, on behalf of the KA-DER, “Just when we had the TÜSİAD, the employers organizations, and the unions accepted the quota, when everyone had already accepted it and when everyone is pronouncing the word quote, it is sad that the Prime Minister talks this way.”

Sayın asks the Prime Minister to go over the information sent to him from the KA-DER about the situation and the implementations in the other countries regarding this matter.

Regarding Prime Minister’s statement that one reason for the low women’s employment was the unregistered economy, Sayın’s comment was to remind that it was the state to fix this problem of unregistered economy, so it was not nice to hide behind this.

“Local elections are coming up. We will see AKP’s candidate lists. There are 18 mayors, but there are also 3225 male mayors. There is not a single mayor from the AKP. The city council memberships are important to women as well, but why are they not trying to get women mayors?”

Erdoğan had said “Do you want to become Ruanda?”

In the reception for the new legislative term, the Prime Minister had gotten into an argument with the KA-DER. When the KA-DER had asked for the securing of the participation of women in the decision mechanisms through the Constitution, the Prime Minister had asked back if there were quotes in the US or France?

When KA-DER president Hülya Gülbahar said there was quote even in Ruanda, Prime Minister’s response was “Do you want to be Ruanda, then go ahead.”

After this dialog, the women in Ruanda had won the 44 seats in the 80-seat Parliament.(EZÖ/TB)