National Guidelines in Turkey - Government

National Action Plan of Turkey - CEDAW, 1997

The plan lists as the critical areas of concern:

1. Education and training of women. This includes a commitment to provide support services like day care centres, kindergartens and public nurseries for women resuming their education.

2. The Girl Child. This includes a commitment to provide guidance for girls to direct them into all working areas, not just traditional feminine professions.

3. Women and health.

4. Violence against women.

5. Women and the economy. A number of problems are listed, including:

   1. Concentration of women as cheap labour in labour-intensive industries such as textile, food, ready-made clothing, and tobacco.

   2. Low rate of participation of women in the industrial sector especially when compared to the agricultural sector.

   3. Gender-bias in the labour market resulting in women working in traditional occupations, and inability of women to apply for jobs considered to be male professions.

   4. Lack of legal protection for women working in the agricultural sector as unpaid family workers, and in the industrial and service sectors. Women are concentrated at the lowest levels in the workplace and employment sector. Low status jobs result in low salaries, and discontinuous and temporary work without social security. Inadequate health and security conditions in the workplace put women's health at great risk.

   5. Inequality at every level of education.

   6. Discriminatory hiring and promotion policies and practices such as non-acceptance of women in particular jobs and professions, preventing women from being promoted to managerial positions, dismissal of women first, in times of economic decline, and low salaries.

   7. Lack of coverage of the social security network for many women.

A number of actions were proposed in order to deal with these problems relating to women and the economy. These included to:

1. make legal arrangements for sharing the responsibilities of child care among mother, father, and the state;

2. enact and enforce an equality law and by giving more weight to the gender perspective to maintain the continuity of women's policies;

3. implement quotas to increase women's participation at all levels of decision-making and administration in political parties;

4. implement a quota system to increase women's participation in local governments;

5. form a unit within the national mechanism to collect information and conduct research about women in managerial positions in the private and public sectors; and,

6. review legislation to create equal sharing of family responsibilities and power between men and women.

6. Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women:

   1. This included a commitment to ensure parental leave for fathers after the birth and the provision of child care. In addition it was proposed to oblige employers to provide nurseries in workplaces where there are 100 or more workers.

   2. In addition it was proposed that all public and private institutions have quotas for female employees in all professions.

   3. Steps were also to be taken to develop projects to increase female employment and to find international sources of finance to support these projects.

   4. Provisions was also to be made to ensure that domestic work by the unpaid female labour force was included in national calculations so that all women who are working at home and working the land will be insured under the social security system.

   5. it was also proposed to provide special bank credit facilities to help women to establish their own businesses and increase the existing availability of credit.

7. Women and the media