Women of Turkey-Greece Join World March

The WWM began from Sao Paolo of Brazil on March 8. The parade in Turkey comprises the beginning of the European leg of the march. Currently, the WWM trails along with a parade in Mexico. The march will have the US, Canada and Quebec junctures before steering ahead in Europe.

The march in Turkey is organized upon the requests of women from Turkey with the support of the Greek women. Hence, the WWM presents an opportunity for furthering informal relations between the Greece and Turkey

Common voices from the women of Turkey and Greece

Spokeswomen for the WWM in Istanbul Sevgi Göyçe from KESK (Confederation of Civil Servants’ Trade Union), Nebile Irmak from DISK(Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions), Ilknur Birol from Community Centers (Halkevleri) ve Dilek Alıcıoğlu Cömert from Amargi Women’s Cooperative in a press briefing said that the march in Turkey aims at raising the issues of poverty and violence, as well as alluding to the ongoing war and conflicts in the neighbor countries and calling for peace.

Göyçe of KESK states that: “In order to channel the global attention towards the ongoing invasion and the war in Iraq, and warn the world regarding risks of spilling over of the conflict to the entire region, we decided together with the women of Greece that the march in Europe should start from Turkey. This cooperation paves the way to bring the women of Turkey and Greece closer and help create common practices in generating a stable and just peace”.

The organization efforts for the WWM results in the spawning of a platform for voicing various gender based demands and problems in Turkey. The Community Centers’ Representative Birol says that, they have requested for an appointment from the parliament speaker Bülent Arınç for May 6, in order to present the demands of the women of Turkey for further legislation. They will be keeping the spirit of the WWM alive within the framework of their ‘Turkey Program’ until when the march ends.

on 17 October.

As a symbol of global identity of the WWM, a quilt is being sown across the globe and the women of Turkey will be sewing a part of this global quilt until the end of the march in October.

The ‘Turkey quilt’ will be sown with pieces voicing the demands of women from each and every city of Turkey, made in those specific places. The Turkey part of the quilt then will be taken to the Grand National Assembly in Ankara and an assessment of the ‘embroidered’ demands will be made.

Requests from Turkey

The members of the WWM’s Turkey Web are making the final touches and debates over the list of requests they compiled. They believe that “political will” is the foremost prerequisite for the resolution of the gender based problems. The members of the Turkey web will be listing their demands under four major headlines:

*Economic rights over the basis of women’s poverty.

Putting a social welfare program aimed at improving the living conditions of the poor and the women in effect, enabling the usage of all public services free of charge, with ease and quality by the women; assuming of services such as caring for the elderly and the children as a “social obligation”; taking the housewives and the unemployed women under the umbrella of unemployment security; introducing a minimum 30 percent obligatory women employment clause for the workplaces that employ more than 50 people, working towards ending gender discrimination in working life

* Political rights envisaging the participation of women in the political life.

Making the required constitutional and legal amendments according to the framework of CEDAW (UN Convention on the Elimination of all Kinds of Discrimination against Women) and the United Nations’ Peking+5 final declarations, aiming to democratize the Political Parties and Election Codes; introducing quotas for guaranteeing 30 percent of the seats in the parliament; creating local women’s assemblies for ensuring local representation

* Cultural rights

Reviewing all the school books in the curricula for ending gender discrimination; adding the topic of ‘gender’ in the university curricula, campaigning against the exploitation of women’s bodies as commercial objects, promoting the breaking of the habit of using of discriminative expressions aimed at women prevalent in the language

* Prevention of violence

Confronting the US policies in the Middle East regarding the invasion of Iraq and refusal of dragging Turkey into the spiral of conflict, offering of the all the possible legal protection against violence threatening women, opening up psychological and legal support centers, adding up the topics of gender and violence in the schools’ curricula, campaigning against the closing of the eyes to sexual abuse and torture under detention, amending the Turkish Criminal Code for the inclusion of clauses that would prevent violence against women, acting against honor killings

The Turkey program of the WWM is as follows:

9 May: Press conference at the Haydarpasa Train Station in the Asian side of Istanbul with the participation of women from Canada, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. The Turkey Meeting at the Eğitim-Sen (Teachers’ Syndicate) No: 2 Branch.

10 May: Embarking on the Leander’s (Kızkulesi) Tower as a symbol of women’s seclusion. Marching from Taksim, the city center of Istanbul to Dolmabahçe, a nearby district. Festivities in Dolmabahçe.

The World Women’s March continues in Greece and Italy after Turkey. The march ends in Burkina Faso on October 17. (AK/EK/SAÖ/YE)