HDP Women’s Assembly meets women discharged by statutory decrees

* Photo: HDP Women's Assembly Press Office

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The Women's Assembly of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has met the women discharged from public service by statutory decrees.

Taking place at the HDP Central Office Ankara earlier today (December 14) on the occasion of the Human Rights Week, the meeting was attended by the HDP Women's Coordination members, Latife Demirci Kahya and Tülay Koçak, HDP Party Assembly members Leman Kiraz and Nuray Türkmen, HDP MPs Gülistan Kılıç - Koçyiğit, Muazzez Orhan, Semra Güzel and HDP Ankara Provincial Women's Assembly members.

Addressing the women at the meeting, HDP Party Assembly member Nuray Türkmen said that she was also discharged by a statutory decree and noted that the HDP is not a party distant from the process of statutory decrees:

Our lives have been usurped; our ties with our families have been broken; we have been deprived of our political lives... We have all gone through these.

'The institutionalization of fascism'

HDP MP Gülistan Kılıç-Koçyiğit also said that with the statutory decrees, there was a desire to standardize employment in the public sector, adding that the purge of the dissident and the caderization of the ones close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were targeted.

Underlining that the ones discharged by statutory decrees were "avoided like the plague", Kılıç-Koçyiğit said:

"The ones discharged by statutory decrees had to leave their living spaces, which has led to a wide-scale chain of aggrievements.

"It is also one of the pillars of the institutionalization of fascism. There was an attempt to intimidate the opposition. The saddest of all was that they tested us with our daily bread, forced us to bow down to slavery."

The MP also stressed that women were affected the most by this process:

There are policies specifically targeting the women discharged by statutory decrees. Women were excluded more, they had more difficulties in finding employment, they were put in a position where they could not practice their profession. For this reason, the issue of statutory decrees means the consolidation of gender roles.

Reiterating that their meeting with the women discharged by statutory decrees aims to discuss the ways and methods in which a struggle can be waged with these women, the MP noted that they, as the HDP, would express the hardships faced by the women discharged by statutory decrees, on every platform, primarily at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

The rest of the meeting was closed to the press. (EMK/SD)