Cherie Blair not so well – versed on Turkey

We recently met with Cherie Blair, the spouse of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the Istanbul home of Arzuhan Doğan Yalçındağ, the chairwoman of Doğan Holding and former president of the Turkish Industry and Business Association, or TÜSİAD.

I am fully aware.

It does gross injustice to refer to Cherie Blair as ‘the spouse of former Prime Minister Tony Blair,’ for Cherie Blair is the last person who would need her husband’s title.

She is a competent attorney specializing in European Union law, human rights and public law, in addition to being a women’s rights activist.

She set up a foundation under her own name in 2008 to support small – scale female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

The Cherie Blair Foundation has managed to reach out to some 5,000 women from North Africa to the Middle East and India within a short time span of about two years.

It is an old amity between Cherie Blair, who was invited to Istanbul by the Vodafone Foundation, and Yalçındağ, who received her at her home in Kandilli on a slightly rainy afternoon.

Both women are members of the International Advisory Board for Milano Expo 2015. And it is another matter of interest that all 15 of the board members are women.

The women of Milano Expo 2015

As far as I understand it, Cherie Blair is utilizing this fact about the advisory board to the advantage of her foundation in the name of ‘women’s solidarity.’

She expounds, for instance, that they were able to market their products thanks to the advisory board for Milano Expo 2015, while supporting small – scale agricultural enterprises owned by women in Kenya.

That is a crucial point, as it is nearly impossible for a small entrepreneur in Kenya to enter the European market all by herself.

The foundation’s principle task is to provide mentorship, Cherie Blair further explains.

Guiding female entrepreneurs on which products are more profitable and how to market them is what they essentially do.

She suggested that we also take on an effective role in the ‘Mentorship Platform’ while we were chatting.

That a woman must be strong and stand on her own feet was something she learned very early on, Cherie Blair commented.

“When my father left home, my mother was left all alone with her two little daughters and no money,” she said.

That her father abandoned a woman with two kids was something that empowered her throughout her entire life, as far as I can discern.

Technology, however, provides other ways to empower women, according to Cherie Blair.

Do Turkish women provide a role model?

The reason for her visit to Istanbul, in fact, is the campaign initiated by the Vodafone Foundation to close the gender gap in cell phone ownership.

It is a truism, as Blair mentions, that cell phones and the internet have a transformative effect on the lives of small – scale female entrepreneurs. But on the other side of the coin, is it not the underlying cause behind this campaign that a world giant like Vodafone wants to expand their markets by reaching out to women as well?

My second point of contention in my chat with Cherie Blair came about in regards to her comments about Turkey. Is it possible to agree with her claims that Turkish women could provide a role model for the Muslim world?

How did the ‘role model provided by Turkish women’ come about with all the talk in the foreign press about the notion of how Turkey could provide a role model for those countries in the region that started the ‘Arab Spring.’

Do Turkish women have any presence in politics? No… The last general elections on June 12 did not even double the nine percent rate for women in the Parliament.

Are Turkish women participating sufficiently in the economic sphere? In comparison to the rest of the world, they are all the way in the backseat with a rate of 24 percent.

Honor killings, on the other hand, are abound, with a couple of women being killed each day.

And we are record breakers regarding the rate of child brides.

Then how exactly will Turkish women provide a role model?

One wishes Cherie Blair had better prepared for her trip to Istanbul.

via Cherie Blair not so well – versed on Turkey – Hurriyet Daily News.