Women protested PM Erdoğan at the International Women’s Istanbul Meeting for having said that “men and women are not equal”. Pointing to women murders they said, “”More of us are being killed when you say we are not equal”.
Burçin BELGE burcin@bianet.org
Istanbul – BİA News Center 08 November 2010, Monday
Women at the International Women’s Istanbul Meeting protested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during his speech at the Istanbul Congress Centre. They rose to their feet and held up banners reading “More of us are being killed when you say we are not equal” and “The men’s love kills three women per day”.
The women protested quietly. Security personnel in the hall took the banners and removed the women from the venue.
“The Prime Minister should think about our safety instead of the number of children”
Members of the Feminist Collective underlined that 236 women were killed in the first seven months of 2010. “Prime Minister Erdoğan continues to tell women to give birth to three children whereas he does not mention the women who died”, they criticized.
The women reminded Erdoğan’s statement made in a meeting with women organizations in Istanbul where he said, “I do not believe in gender equality”. The women questioned “Prime Minister Erdoğan’s policies to be implemented to provide safety for the life of women”.
Başbakan Erdoğan’ın Dolmabahçe’de kadın örgütleriyle yaptığı toplantıda “kadın erkek eşitliğine inanmıyorum” dediğini hatırlatan kadınlar, “Başbakan Erdoğan’a kadınların can güvenliklerini sağlamak için hayata geçirecekleri politikaları” sordular:
“We do not ask Prime Minister Erdoğan to work on the women’s ‘disposition’ or on ‘how many children they should have’. We want him to fulfil his duty and prevent violence against women, oppression and discrimination. We want to hear that steps are being taken and policies are being implemented that guarantee our right to life and life safety. We want to hear that very urgently because on every day that passes with all these announcements, another three women are being killed”.
“Women murders are not on the government’s agenda”
The women made a press release including the following issues:
* According to the standards of the European Union (EU), one women’s shelter should be opened per 7,500 people. Hence, there should be 7,500 shelters in Turkey, but in reality there are 38. They have a total capacity of 867 people.
* In the Gender Equality report of the World Economic Forum Turkey ranks in 126th position among a total of 134 countries.
* The number of women murders increased by 1,400 percent within the past seven years. There is no action plan to stop this development. In fact, the legislature and the executive do not even have an according agenda.
* At court, the murders benefit from an unjust mitigation of punishment because of provocation. The women are killed by their husbands after they come back from the police, from shelters and prosecutors.
Erdoğan again defended rights of “ladies with headscarves”
In his speech delivered at the International Women Istanbul Meeting, Erdoğan once more claimed that the rights of women with and without headscarves should be defended. Read the main points of his speech as follows:
Don’t wait for you rights to be delivered: We appreciate to see more of our sisters in every area from politics to local administration, from work life to education and in culture and sports; we appreciate to see more successful women. Yet we know that this is not sufficient. Do not wait for your rights to be delivered but struggle for obtaining your rights.
Rights and freedoms are not the vision of a certain section: Rights and freedoms as basic human needs may not be assessed as owned by a certain section [of society] or as the dream of a certain section.
Headscarf question: Despite our struggle, both in the name of contemporary life and modernity it does not accord with equality, humanity or conscience to have young girls removed from school because of their way to dress. (BB/VK)
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