Back to our topic about gender equality in Turkey:
With the foundation of the Republic in 1923, Turkey has experienced rapid social and political transformation. Ensuring the equality between men and women; state support for women in entry into the public sphere; restructuring the legal system; efforts to transform the social traditions and values which were inherently discriminatory are some of the main axis of this transformation. However, with respect to advancement of women and gender equality in the country, some problems still exist in practice. In Turkey, women do not confront with any legal obstacles in exercising fundamental human rights such as education, political rights, employment. Turkish legislation guarantees equality between men and women. The amendments in the Constitution constitute the most important part of the reforms directed towards women. Nonetheless Turkey had placed explicitly the equality principle between men and women in her constitution formerly, by the addition of a provision to Article 10 of the Constitution, State has the responsibility to take necessary measures to provide women equal rights and opportunities with men. In this way, Turkey has become one of the very few countries that has a similar provision in their legal system. However, despite significant legal improvement, it is not possible to say that gender equality has been reflected completely in practice in accordance with these improvements. In this case, a strong patriarchal culture, gender discriminatory traditions and practices have roles. In Turkey 25 % of the population (13 million) are women in the age range of 15-49. Naturally, with such a huge population of women, it is unavoidable that women’s problems are reflected to the social life of the country. Turkey, by increasing compulsory education to 8 years in 1997, has taken a significant step to get over the problems in education that women are faced with; targeted to make schooling rate reach 100 % for girls and boys until 2010. In this framework, many projects have been initiated.
Another problematic area, employment of women is still among the basic areas of problem. Turkey has taken this issue under legal and constitutional guarantee by incorporating provisions regarding equal participation of women and men in working life both into its Constitution and into the Labour Act
With the New Labour Act, effective as of 2003, it is resolved that no discrimination with any reason in terms of basic human rights, including sex is permissible in the relationship between the employer and employee. In this context, the Law includes provisions ruling the employer must not make any discrimination, either directly or indirectly, against an employee in the conclusion, conditions, execution and termination of her employment contract due to the employee’s sex or maternity, differential remuneration for similar jobs or for work of equal value is not permissible and sex, marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy and confinement shall not constitute a valid reason for termination of the contract. Besides, provisions regarding sexual harassment in the workplace and part time work are also included in the Law for the first time. Provisions in the State Personnel Law and Vocational Education Act on access to work, promotion, training and work conditions are also regulated on the basis of non-discrimination principle. In parallel with these arrangements, the Prime Ministry Circular related to “Acting in Accordance with the Principle of Equality in Employee Recruitment” has been issued. With the mentioned Circular, governmental institutions have been instructed on the subject of no discrimination shall be made on the basis of gender, except for service requirements, during staff recruitment. Although the equality between women and men is ensured legally, women’s labour force participation rate was only 24.8% in 2007, while this rate was 71.3% for men. Additionally, in the context of globalization, unemployment of women during the last two decades has shifted to unregistered economy. Agriculture is still the sector that employs women most. Even this sector causes women remain as unpaid family workers, it motivates women to socialize and participate in decisions. The basic reason of working women to end their work life after a short period and/or not to be able to show their potential for advance in their career is the problem for women to reconcile their work and home life. The number of day care centres in the country is still insufficient in spite of all efforts.
http://www.wikigender.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gender_Equality_in_Turkey
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