Enabling Pathway

Historically, Europe has been an important symbol for the women of Turkey.

Since 1999, the EU has been a reference point for women’s NGOs for pressuring the state to implement legislation in relation to women’s issues. Thus, it has been an instrument for legitimization to develop and to implement gender related policies. The enabling pathway of the EU impact induced empowerment of women’s NGOs vis-à-vis the state, but in post-2005 period this influence has been very vulnerable to fluctuations and downturns in EU-Turkey relations.

In the previous section, I demonstrated that the Copenhagen criteria together with the EU’s gender acquis have facilitated major legal changes in Civil and Penal Codes and altered the political and social framework for functioning of societal actors by enabling women’s NGOs. The first two instances in this section concentrate again on the reform processes of the Civil and Penal Codes with a different focus to show how women’s NGOs have used the EU strategically and link their agendas to the EU and justify and legitimize their positions with reference to the EU.

The long-established women’s movement in Turkey criticized the patriarchal structure of the Civil Code and the inferior position of women, which were strengthened under this code. Since the Ottoman women’s movement, constitutional and legal issues have been at the center of women’s demands. Particularly, in the Republican period, from the 1950s onwards, several attempts have been made to amend the civil code, but it was mainly in the 1980s that the feminist movement criticized the code from a gender-sensitive perspective. The KİH-YÇ organization adopted the cause, mobilized international support and raised awareness in the international arena (Interview KİH-YÇ 2011). The women’s association KA-DER established in 1997 with the aim to develop women’s status in politics also endorsed the cause of reforming the code. The code was also supported by the KSGM.

Therefore, there were multiple interacting facilitating factors in the domestic arena. In addition, in the international context, both the UN and the EU played facilitating roles

in this process. Women’s NGOs pointed out that there was some speculation in the international media about the reform of the Turkish Civil Code because of Turkey’s EU accession process. The interviewee from KİH-YÇ (2011) commented on this issue by pointing out how the women of Turkey strategically used the EU framework both in international and domestic arenas by referring to the EU to change the Civil Code:

We can clearly say that this was not because of the EU. It is true that we use the EU tool to overcome the state’s resistance and refer to the Copenhagen criteria to increase the pressure on the state and amend the legislation. Moreover, we have used the EU framework to mobilize international support. Nonetheless, major legal reforms have taken place as a result of successful campaigns led by the dynamic women’s movement in Turkey. Turkey’s accession to the EU has accelerated the process, but not as a primary driving force. We, women of Turkey, are the drivers of the reform process.

Women’s NGOs framed their priorities in relation to the EU to achieve success for their own causes and push the state to accept their proposals.

As I emphasized in the previous section, the Campaign for the reform of the Turkish Penal Code was initiated immediately after the reform of the Turkish Civil Code in 2001 and women have used the EU framework for empowerment. Similarly, under the name of the Women’s Platform on the Penal Code, a group of thirty civil society organizations organized campaigns to ensure that the changes on women’s status would be reflected in the Penal Code. Until 2005, the Turkish criminal code regarded sexual crimes committed against women as crimes against public morality and social order, rather than violations against individual women’s rights (Interview Mor Çatı 2011). The activities of the platform were coordinated by the Women for Women’s Human Rights-New Ways. In 2002, the KİH-YÇ initiated a working group and included the representatives of women’s NGOs, bar associations and academics to represent different viewpoints and ensure participation.

After the 2002 elections, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi- AKP) came to power, the new government formed its own committee and ignored the draft proposal of the feminists. In 2004, former Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan (now President) assailed the women’s platform at a media conference and said that “There were even those who marched to Ankara, carrying placards that do not suit the ‘Turkish women’. I cannot applaud behavior that does not suit our morality and traditions…A marginal group does not have any right to

represent the ‘Turkish women’” (Şen 2004). When former Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan intervened to criminalize adultery through the code in 2005, women’s groups established a European network for immediate action and explained to European counterparts how the proposed adultery law is in contradiction with the EU’s principles, values and policies. The controversy over the proposed adultery law prompted a crisis between the EU and Turkey, and the EU pressured the Turkish government to withdraw the adultery law. This case illustrates how women’s NGOs used the EU framework in order to justify their actions. In this context, it is possible to see a function of the EU as a legitimizer of women’s NGOs activism in preventing the adultery law.

Another example of the use of an enabling pathway by the women’s NGOs is the demand for representation and the case of KA-DER. Several EU Progress Reports and the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality repeatedly emphasized that despite the positive changes in the legal framework, one of the vital challenges in Turkey regarding women is the low number of women in politics and the workforce and the significance of introducing quotas to boost female representation.

In 1997, a group of feminist professional women established KA-DER, to help women promote their status in electoral politics. A key principle of the organization was its non-partisan approach towards different political backgrounds. KA-DER brings women together from different ideological perspectives. The general-secretary in KA-DER said that “this is the success and attractiveness of our organization…to empower women from different backgrounds both at local and national levels.”

(Interview KA-DER 2011). Since the 1999 electoral campaign, KA-DER has prompted a quota for female representation in politics. KA-DER uses the EU framework to launch different campaigns in Turkey (Interview KA-DER):

In 2003, the European Council recommended EU members states to promote women representation in politics and emphasized the importance of quotas. This recommendation was very critical to pursue our objectives in KA-DER. This helped us to launch a campaign for a 30 % quota for women in political representation.

Therefore, in national elections, KA-DER used the European Council recommendation as a mechanism to legitimize its positions in Turkey.

The Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey (Türkiye Kadın Girişimciler Derneği- KAGİDER) represents another illustration of enabling impact. In 2008, a

group of women entrepreneurs came together to establish an organization to help promote women entrepreneurs and women’s leadership in Turkey. KAGİDER strongly supports EU membership and established an office in Brussels to undertake lobbying activities with EU institutions. The general secretary of KAGİDER (Interview 2011) noted:

In Turkey the participation of the women in the workforce is extremely low. We can see this in various progress reports (by referring to the European Commission’s progress reports). Promoting women’s employment and equal opportunities has been our priority in our campaigns.

In the EU Lisbon summit, EU leaders set out a strategy to make Europe more dynamic and competitive. The Lisbon Strategy of the EU has recommended that the women's participation level in the labour market shall be at least 60 % by 2010. Turkey has only managed to raise this rate slightly higher, a figure far below that of EU countries. In order to reach this goal, we need to create more jobs- at least eight million- for women and integrate them into the labour force. For this purpose, in March 2011 KAGİDER initiated a campaign to increase the employment rate of women in Turkey. The main objective was to raise awareness among various actors from politicians, employers to civil society and the media and to help them take action and to improve the employment rate for women of Turkey.

This overview from different women’s NGOs shows that women’s NGOs used the prospect of EU membership to legitimate their positions in various debates.

The EU functioned as a legitimate reference point in various debates and enabled women’s NGOs to justify their positions and recommendations on policy proposals and policy changes, to convince the state about their positions. These examples also demonstrate that, in practice, the enabling impact of the EU empowers women’s civil society in Turkey in relation to the state. By referring to different EU practices and experiences, women’s NGOs pressure the Turkish state to pursue necessary reforms and make arrangements in relation to women’s issues.