Legal reforms
Legal reforms
Significant changes to the legal status of women have, however, been introduced in recent years. The Turkish civil and penal codes have been modified and revised to this end. A new clause on gender equality was intro- duced into Article 10 of the Constitution in May 2004. The close reads as follows, ‘women and men have equal rights . . . The state is responsible for taking all necessary measures to realize equality between women and men’. This is a provision that paves the way for positive discrimination. Article 41 of the Constitution has been amended with a view to establishing and reiterating the principle of equality between spouses as a basis for the family. The 2001 Civil Code granted women equal rights as individuals and citizens, rather than recognizing these rights on the basis of membership to their families. The earlier Civil Code had recognized men as the sole family breadwinners and household heads. The new Civil Code also abolished the concept of the ‘head of the family’.
The Penal Code, adopted in 2004, following extensive debates organized by civil society organizations and experts on selected articles of the draft, now recognizes crimes committed against women not ‘as crimes perpetrated against the family or the social order’ but as crimes and violations of individual human rights. In 2005, the Penal Code went through an additional paradigm shift, as it was further reviewed with respect to its full alignment with the universal principles of women’s rights. References to customary concepts such as chastity, honour of the family, dishonour and shame have also been removed. The spokespersons for the Association for Women in Politics (KA-DER) confirm that these recent revisions in the legal codes are the outcome of the relentless and collective efforts of women’s civil society organizations throughout Turkey. Over the years, actors in women’s movements have worked together to amend many discriminatory clauses in the Civil Code, Penal Code and the Turkish Constitution itself. The amendments have now been incorporated into newly revised policies and regulations in the employment, education and health sectors. As such, these new legal revisions in the Civil and Penal Codes not only condemn and punish marital rape, and toughen the sentencing for honour killings, but also facilitate socio-cultural and political changes that provide greater social, cultural, political and sexual rights to Turkish women.
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POLICY CASE STUDIES
Despite these reforms, which have largely been adopted as responses to Turkey’s EU accession process, the status of women throughout the country remains limited. According to data from official government reports and independent research findings, the number of women who are victims of honour crimes has not declined at the expected level. Data also indicate that domestic and sexual violence against women remains widespread. According to the World Watch Institute’s 2002 ‘Women and Violence Report’, Turkish women are subject to violence in about 34 per cent of the households surveyed. An earlier study, carried out by the Directorate of Women’s Status and Problems in 1995, reported that, out of 1070 married women, 351 women experienced physical and verbal violence and/or intimidation of some sort. The national mechanisms to respond to and monitor these incidences on the other hand have not been fully developed or lacked effective imple- mentation. In 2007, for example, there were only 38 shelter homes available to victims of domestic violence and sexually-abused women and girls in the entire country, with more than 25 concentrated in the cities of Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara. Further efforts are needed in Turkey towards gender equality in the judicial, institutional and administrative fields. There is also a need to further improve equal treatment between women and men in the labour market. Although equal opportunities and gender equality have yet to be fully achieved, the process of EU accession has generated and encouraged many important reforms, in law in general and in terms of gender equality in particular.
The educational participation of women and girls in secondary and higher education has also not reached desired levels over the past 25 years. Illiteracy among women is reported to be around 17 per cent. In an effort to monitor and reduce illiteracy among women and girls, compulsory education was raised to 8 years of schooling in 2000. The school dropout rate among girls in the 11–15 age group is also increasing, particularly outside large, metropolitan areas. This is a situation that is accompanied by an increase in the rate of early age marriages and maternal and infant death incidences. Turkey’s National Human Development Report for 2007–2008 indicates that there is an 8 per cent school attendance gap between girls and boys at the primary school level.
Gender equality in employment and political participation are also among the problems that need to be recognized as priorities. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI), Turkey ranks at the low 105th place after such countries as Bahrain and Burkina Faso. In addition, Turkish women’s participation in the labour force (currently at only 22 per cent) is one of the lowest in Europe. The salary gap between men and women for equal work is also estimated to be as high as 28 per cent.