Women Converge on Turkey's Capital for Women Rights

The Women's Secretary of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Public Employees (KESK), the Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Ankara Women's Initiative for Peace organize a "march" from Istanbul in the west and Hakkari in the east to Ankara to draw attention to pressing problems regarding women's rights. The members of the organizations aim at voicing their opposition to discriminating and conservative policies, their proposals for solutions and their call for peace. Urgent problems to be tackled are women murders, violence against women, child abuse and labour exploitation.

The women will set off on 9 November from Hakkari and one day later from Istanbul. In their bags they carry slogans in Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian and Greek, saying "I walk for peace and the struggle against the exploitation of my identity, my body and my labour".

Call for support

The group of women coming from Hakkari will visit eight different provinces on their 1000-km journey. The women from Istanbul will go through four provinces and have 450 kilometres ahead of them. Press releases are expected for the cities of Van, Bitlis, Siirt, Batman, Diyarbakır, Urfa, Adıyaman, Koçaeli, Bursa and Eskişehir. The problems of the women in these provinces will be brought to the agenda together with suggestions for possible solutions.

The groups are supposed to meet in Ankara on 12 November where they are going to terminate their journey with a walk to the Prime Ministry. The women will gather the problems and requests of the women in the provinces and present the data to the Prime Ministry.

In press conferences to be held today (5 November) in Istanbul and Ankara, the three co-operating institutions will call on political parties, people and institutions sensitive to the issue for support. The organizers are also inviting the deputies from the provinces they come through to meet the groups on their way.

Criticizing AKP and Minister for Women and Family Affairs

The KESK Women Secretary, Songül Morsümbül, highlighted that the march aims at addressing the problems of all women in Turkey in a holistic manner and at making the suggestions for a solution heard.

In an interview with bianet, Morsümbül underlined the following key points:

* Women murders, harassment, rape, child abuse, discrimination against women in professional life and the exploitation of the women's identity, labour and body continues in Turkey unabated. Women always come to the agenda with news on page 3.

* The Minister for Women Affairs, Selma Aliye Kavaf, does not fulfil her duty. The government does not develop policies to resolve these problems. The AKP government creates solutions with laws and regulations but we do not experience any developments in practice.

* The Kurdish women movement in Turkey, the environment of feminist women and women organizations did a lot of work on these issues. By combining their demands we wanted to carry out a holistic practical approach against these problems. We wanted the voices of the women in the joint organizations to be heard by adding this voice. Another aim was to contribute to the establishment of a network of association and solidarity between women.

* We called on 50 institutions and individuals. Twelve institutions and a couple of other people support our march. We will go to Ankara together with the representatives of these institutions and individual supporters. In each province, we will add the problems and proposals for solutions to our file that we are going to take to Ankara. (BB/EÖ/VK)