Feminist Lawyer Canan Arın Receives Bruno Leoni Award

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Feminist lawyer Canan Arın, who is also one of the founders of the Mor Çatı (Purple Roof) Women's Shelter Foundation, has been awarded the Bruno Leoni Award in 2018. The award, which has been given by the Italy-based Bruno Leoni Institute every year since 2008, is awarded to people from different countries of the world for their contributions to human rights.

The institute has announced that this year's award has been awarded to feminist lawyer Canan Arın for her struggle against child marriages.

The award, which is regarded as one of the most important awards of democracy and human rights, was previously awarded to academic Vernon L. Smith in 2008, academics Deirdre McCloskey from the UK in 2016 and politician Leopoldo Lopez from Venezuela in 2017.

"I am dedicating my award to all courageous women"

Canan Arın, who received her award at the ceremony held in Milano on November 12, has spoken to bianet. Stating that she is both surprised and happy about the award, Arın has underlined that the institute has been granting scholarships to five thousand children in Italy and added:

"The Institute has given me this award for my courageous work in the field of women's rights in Turkey. I think that all women are courageous. I think that we are indebted to our grandmothers all over the world for having provided us with the rights that we have today.

"We have to find new ways to extend our acquired rights and to advance the struggle. We have to raise our voices against dictatorship in every part of the world. I am dedicating my award to all courageous women of the world."

About Canan Arın

Lawyer Canan Arın is one of the founders of the Mor Çatı (Purple Roof) Women's Shelter Foundation. She graduated from the Faculty of Law at İstanbul University. After her graduation, she specialized in constitutional law in the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Having returned to Turkey in 1976, she took an active part in the 2nd Wave Women's Movement in 1980. In addition to the Purple Roof Women's Shelter Foundation, she was also one of the founders of the Association for Supporting and Educating Women Candidates (KA-DER) in 1997 and İstanbul Bar Association, Women's Rights Enforcement Center in 1998.

Between the years 1994 and 1997, she acted as an expert on violence against women for the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission. In 1995, she was a member of the delegation at the United Nations (UN) World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.

She has also several articles on male violence.

About Bruno Leoni

Bruno Leoni, who was born in 1913, was a Professor of Legal Theory and the Theory of the State at the University of Pavia. He was also a practicing lawyer, founder editor of the journal Il Politico and a newspaper columnist.

Having struggled for democracy and law throughout his life, Leoni died in 1967. The Bruno Leoni Award has been awarded in his honor since 2008. (EMK/SD)

* Photograph: @istbrunoleoni