‘We don’t want war,’ say women in İstanbul

* Photo: JinNews

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Amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, women came together in İstanbul's Kadıköy district and set up the "Democracy Rostrum" in order to raise their voices against war, poverty, inequality and exploitation.

Several women, including Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) İstanbul MP Züleyha Gülüm, and women's organizations attended the event, opening a banner that read, "Women are against poverty and war" and chanting the slogans, "Women are strong together" and "Jin jiyan azadî".

'Trustees target women'

Taking the floor first at the "Democracy Rostrum", Beyda Ceylan from the "Kampüs Cadıları" (Campus Witches) platform said that the first thing trustee-rectors do at universities is to attack women.

Speaking after Ceylan, Rojda Aksoy, a member of the "Mor Dayanışma" (Purple Solidarity) platform, recalled that women were faced with police violence on March 8 International Women's Day and stressed that society should realize the war policies pursued by the state.

'Free future will be women's'

Addressing women, HDP İstanbul MP Züleyha Gülüm said that they, women, were in the square to say 'No' to the impoverishment of women, the implementation of policies feeding into violence and the aggravation of the Kurdish question and to defend their own acquired rights:

We don't let them take away our right to alimony. We will continue achieving new gains. Free future will be women's. Women's struggle for freedom will win.

'We raise our own voice against war'

After these speeches, DİB member Nesteren Davutoğlu and Social Freedom Party (TÖP) member Perihan Koca read out the press statement.

Raising concerns that even the most essential basic needs such as housing, food and heating have turned into luxuries in Turkey amid the economic crisis, Davutoğlu underlined that women are compelled to work in low-paid and unskilled jobs surrounded by mobbing, harassment and male violence and in unregistered, flexible and precarious conditions.

Noting that "women's unemployment is soaring day by day," she said:

"A woman is the poorest individual in a poor household. Women are the poorest and most dispossessed of the world. Capitalism still sustains its existence by exploiting women's labor and bodies. Women's lives are seized in cooperation of the capital, political power holders and male-dominant family. In conditions where the economic crisis is getting worse and worse by the day, women are placed the burden to meet all needs".

Raising concerns over the low wages "that would not even suffice for survival", Nesteren Davutoğlu recalled that the care for children, ill and old people is also undertaken by women in households.

'Women at the forefront of the struggle'

Taking the floor afterwards, Perihan Koca underlined that women are at the very forefront of the struggle for ecology and labor:

"The male-dominant state, political power holders and men owe us. We will not stay silent to war, which means violence and migration, to the exploitation of paid and unpaid labor, to women's poverty or to the seizure of acquired rights. We defend life against war. The İstanbul Convention must be urgently signed again and it must be effectively implemented.

We will keep on struggling for centers to prevent feminicides and male violence, courses on gender equality, kindergartens, care homes for the sick and elderly, for equal pay, job security and secure life conditions.

(EMK/SD)