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DE RUEHAK #0592/01 0741001
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 151001Z MAR 07 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1341
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
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RUEUITH/ODC ANKARA TU//TCH//
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RUEHAK/USDAO ANKARA TU

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000592 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL PINR OSCE TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY; INCREASED 
AWARENESS BUT SLOW TO CHANGE 
 
 
1.(U) Summary: Despite a flurry of activities to mark 
International Women's Day on March 8, real progress on 
improving conditions for women in Turkey has been limited. 
Opposition MP Gulsun Bilgehan organized a special women's 
session in parliament to highlight women's issues in Turkey; 
only one cabinet minister attended, the State Minister for 
family and women affairs.  Two new women's shelters were 
dedicated at the Kocatepe convention hall in Ankara, and 
Turks aired their concerns with a variety of marches and 
conferences throughout major cities.  While honor killings 
and domestic violence remain serious problems, a few 
dedicated activists are increasing awareness and sparking 
gradual change.  End Summary. 
 
2.(U) As Turkey's International Women's Day events showed, 
there have been some advances, particularly for educated 
women from established families or in urban areas.  The newly 
elected president of the Turkish Businessmen and 
Industrialist's Association (TUSIAD) is the successful female 
CEO of KanalD, Arzuhan Dogan Yalcindag.  While Yalcindag 
comes from one of Turkey's leading families, she has parlayed 
that advantage into an impressive career that has broken 
barriers and served as a role model.  Yalcindag, who founded 
the Women's Initiative for Turkey in the EU, used her TUSIAD 
speech to push for increased attention to women's rights 
issues. 
 
3.(U)  Republican People's Party (CHP) MP Gulsun Bilgehan 
called for greater advancement for Turkish women and girls in 
her Women's Day speech before parliament.  Bilgehan, who is 
one of the few Turks, let alone Turkish women, to be elected 
to chair a Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe (PACE) 
committee, heads the committee dealing with gender equality, 
honor killings, domestic violence, forced marriages and 
education of girls.  She has spearheaded an effort to 
sensitize the Turkish parliament to gender issues, 
distributing a Turkish language version of a PACE booklet on 
domestic violence to all MPs.  The special parliamentary 
session on women's issues she organized was roundly applauded 
in the media, which also zeroed in on the one lonely cabinet 
minister who attended Bilgehan's speech: State Minister for 
family and women's affairs Nimet Cubukcu.  While PM Erdogan 
has called discrimination against women "worse than racism" 
and insisted that women must not be treated as second-class 
beings, his failure to appoint more than one woman to his 
cabinet is often cited as evidence of Turkey's glass ceiling. 
 The low percentage of women MPs (4.4%) is also indicative of 
the hurdles women face in obtaining positions of authority. 
 
¶4. (U) Conferences in Istanbul focused on equality and 
freedom in order to eliminate the oppression of women. 
Thousands of Turks marched in Turkey's major metropolitan 
areas to show support for increased attention on the plight 
of Turkey's women and girls.  While awareness in the urban 
areas is improving, much remains to be done in the more 
traditional rural regions.  Eight million Turkish women 
reportedly are illiterate.  Despite a government campaign to 
encourage parents to send their daughters to school, some 
640,000 Turkish girls do not attend school and fewer than 
three percent of women receive a university education. 
Mandatory schooling for Turkish girls ends at any earlier age 
(11 years old) than in any other OECD country.  Educational 
obstacles translate to limited employment opportunities; only 
a third as many women work as men, according to the Turkish 
Clothing Manufacturers' Association chairwoman, and  women 
are paid on average 50 percent less than their male 
colleagues.  Turkey has been ranked near the bottom of the 
World Economic Forum's (WEF) Gender Gap report for the last 
two years, including for mother and child death rates. 
 
¶5. (U) Against this background, small victories are 
particularly encouraging.  Two women's shelters were 
inaugurated in the Ankara area on International Women's Day. 
According to the Social Services and Orphanages Directorate 
(SHCEK), since 1990 over 6,000 women and 4,600 children have 
temporarily resided in SHCEK shelters.  Press reports state 
that by the end of 2007, there will 17 SHCEK women's shelters 
in Turkey, with 13 more planned.  The shelters provide refuge 
for victims of domestic violence as well as women fleeing the 
threat of honor killings by relatives.  Honor killings remain 
a problem in Turkey, with between 50 and 100 women murdered 
each year and 17 percent of Turkish men saying they approved 
of honor killings in a 2006 UN poll.  Accurate numbers are 
hard to determine as some killings are either not reported or 
are labeled as an accident or suicide.  The official number 
 
ANKARA 00000592  002 OF 002 
 
 
recognized by the TGNA is 91 honor killings over the past 5 
years.  "On paper, we seem to have achieved a lot," said 
Justice and Development Party (AKP) MP Fatma Sahin, "but when 
we go into the field, we recognize that a lot more needs to 
be done."  Sahin sponsored and promoted a 300-page report on 
honor killings that led to legislative changes as well as 
heightened awareness of the issue.  NGOs are also closely 
engaged in combatting this problem and helping to educate the 
affected population. 
 
¶6.  (U) Advances are also gradually occuring in other 
bastions of male dominance.  According to Turkey's top 
religious authority, in the near future female mufti 
assistants will be appointed to all provinces in Turkey. 
This will be the first appointment of women in such a 
capacity in the Muslim world.  The women will not, however, 
preach in mosques. 
 
¶7. (U) Comment.  The status of Turkey's women illustrates the 
tensions racking the country in a larger sense.  Rural to 
urban migration and increased education are disrupting 
traditional attitudes.  Women, who in many poorer, more 
traditional areas are still viewed as property men must 
protect by safeguarding their bodies and minds, are 
increasingly being exposed to Turkey's modern side.  As more 
women join the workforce, out of choice or necessity, their 
expectations are rising and their willingness to accept their 
traditional role is falling.  This year's International 
Women's Day celebration demonstrated that many recognize the 
challenges that exist and that progress is being made, but 
there is still a long way to go.  End Comment. 
 
Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ 
 
WILSON